I can’t say anything meaningful on the passing of one of the world’s most vibrant talents. I’ve been devouring the tributes and the memories that have recently been written about him. Given how much of him we have seen and heard over the years, it’s obviously not shocking to learn that he was dealing with such horrible demons, but it’s nevertheless devastating to hear that he fell to such ultimate pain. I am immensely sorry for him, his family and, frankly, for all of us. Robin Williams was one-of-a-kind and, I think, that this is a brilliant story that beautifully illustrates his importance. Kudos, once again, to Dahlia Lithwick for having such a lovely (and I mean that literally) voice.
Archive for the 'everyday' Category
Molly’s new favorite word is ‘no.’ Sometimes it’s a curt ‘no’ and sometimes it’s a very dramatic and emotional ‘NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’ What’s confusing (read: frustrating) is that sometimes it doesn’t mean ‘no’ at all. It might mean ‘not right now’ or ‘maybe’ or – despite all of the PSAs to the contrary – ‘yes’ (gasp!).
Anyway, just today I was revisiting a Slate article from earlier this year that a friend had recently posted to her Facebook page. It’s all about why we should be cool with toddlers’ freakouts and tantrums. After a four-day weekend home with a 20-month old (21 months today! Happy day Bear!), it was especially reassuring. My favorite part? This quote, from the all-knowing Harvey Karp: “It is hard to spend all day with a 2-year-old, and they don’t really want to spend all day with you anyway.”
So true. This morning, as we were driving Mollybear to school, I turned around to face her in her carseat. I smiled and said, “Hi.” She smiled back at me, giggled and said, “No.”
A trip to the grocery store. Or how we spent our hours in exile from the open house.
Published November 17, 2013 everyday , family , local , Madisonia 8 CommentsAO has long wanted to check out Yue Wah, a grocery store on South Park. And we had to be out of our place today for an open house, so we thought we’d finally see what was inside. A little tornado warning was not going to deter us.
Yue Wah
Do you see Bear? Anyway, I’m no expert in grocery stores, but this one seemed pretty nice. I especially liked that it was not crowded. Though that could have had more to do with the ominous skies and probably shouldn’t be relied on by future customers who might be reading this.
Horseradishy
Hello panda
Plates and spoons
Snake-head fish
Coffee
Fruit
Bear kept insisting on putting quinoa in the cart.
Blurry quinoa
Sauces
And then we went out to lunch and Bear sat in her first booster seat. I know she was probably old enough for that rite of passage many moons ago, but don’t blame her for the delay. That’s on me. I hope I didn’t do any permanent damage.
Crayons and a booster
I admit I’m feeling overwhelmed at the moment and I’m pretty sure it shows. I have a bunch going on at work (I know, who doesn’t?), we’ve decided to put the condo on the actual market with an actual realtor (which means keeping the place clean for showings and open houses), Bear’s early rising has risen again with the time change, hosting Thanksgiving is on the horizon, we’re in the midst of trying to get the Union’s members to recertify us, I’m behind on my transportation committee duties (like getting up to speed on everything), and I’ve been slacking in the running department and haven’t run since last Friday. I’ve been having tons of stress dreams lately – last night I dreamt I was way stressfully behind on orthodontia appointments that hadn’t seemed like my responsibility to make (and I was somewhere between two and four years old in the dream).
What I really want to do is just sit and read and let all of the rest of it wash away for a bit. Last night, I started reading Curtis Sittenfeld’s new book, Sisterland. And I also just picked up from the library (after having it on hold for what seemed like forever) Khaled Hosseini’s And the Mountains Echoed. And I just got an alert that Joanna Trollope’s Sense & Sensibility is waiting for me on a sweet little library shelf! Where. Is. The. Time. I don’t know: but I’m going to find it.
My aunt Jane just sent me this interesting op-ed from The Times and I must say I found it quite timely. Recently, I became aware of some of the phenomena discussed in the editorial. For example, a friend of mine told me that on her 3-year old son’s t-ball team, it is not possible to be “out.” She was describing how her son would gleefully hit the ball and meander over to first base. She said she would yell, “Run,” but her son would just look at her kinda quizzically, as if to say, “Why?” It’s not that he’s lazy – far from it; in fact, she said he’s the first to run after every ball hit. It’s just that he doesn’t understand the point of sprinting to first base. In his mind, quite understandably, all a person does is hit the ball and then move onto the base. In addition to finding the image adorable, I thought, “That’s so weird.” I didn’t have the studies cited in the article to back up my scientific conclusion that the t-ball rules were “weird,” and I didn’t really think about it in terms of harm to the child in the way the article describes.* Instead I thought, “Why on earth would it be bad to tell a kid he’s “out”? It almost seems as though the adults are implicitly suggesting that failure is a character flaw instead of what it really is: a necessary part of life. And certainly a necessary part of baseball. I mean, really. Those games are long enough.
I’m sure it won’t be fun to watch Molly fail (though if the present is any indication: I’m callous. I’m still laughing about her running smack into the clear glass door at the library), but it’s not something I’m very scared of. Of course she will fail! If she doesn’t, how will she ever succeed? It makes so much sense to me that the kids who are uber-praised will stop trying once they have that first failure. If you haven’t learned how to deal with failure early and often, it must be terrifying to experience it after only lots of “success.” Good grief! It’s like just setting kids up to fail by not letting them fall. Oy. Let’s please try not to do that, ok?
Not to mention that I have no interest in storing a boatload of crappy participation trophies in my house.
*And let me be clear: I don’t think there is any harm being done to this particular charming three-year old. I know he’s already been given – and will continue to be given – plenty of opportunities to fail and succeed in his life.
life and puppies 