The Thing With Feathers

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

The Hurt Man

When my daughters were baptized into the Episcopal church, their grandmother gave them a Bible for kids. While it has (from my perspective) some disturbingly evangelical spins on things, they like the pictures and go on binges where that is all they want to read before bed. We've been reading the story of the Good Samaritan (or, according to Sarah, "The Story of the Hurt Man") for the last few nights.

Sarah is very sensitive. While watching the Super Bowl with her dad last year, she saw a commercial for a heart drug. The heart, a guy in a rubber heart suit, was walking down the street and was subsequently mugged by thugs representing cholesterol, lack of exercise, and smoking. He is left by an burnt-out building, while the narrator intones about how this tragedy could have been prevented with the drug. Sarah started to cry and to this day asks "what happened to the valentine Mama?"

I explain that his Mama came and he went home and had a hot bath and a story, but almost a year later she is still asking about it.

There is a boy at their preschool who is acting out some of the domestic violence he sees at home. He is a pariah of sorts with the other kids and a trial for the teachers.

The girls have spent the last few weeks collating bad behavior with this boy. When I get after them for something they apologize and say that behavior of that sort is his behavior, not what good kids do.

After several readings of "The Hurt Man" last week, Sarah said "Mama, X (the boy) is like the hurt man. Everyone ignores him and nobody plays with him." We talked about how the girls don't have to play with him if he is mean, but they do have to be kind to him and everyone else.

When I dropped them off this morning, the boy ran right up to them and said "Am I still your friend today?" It broke my heart. Apparently, they have decided that he needs a friend just like the hurt man.

Note to self. They are listening.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Ready . . Aim

Every morning, when I drop the kids off at pre-school, we visit the tiny little pre-school potties. As I was helping Hannah with her pants, I turned to look at Sarah and she was perched above the toilet on her toes, standing almost vertically, peeing in the toilet. When I asked her what she was doing, she said she had decided to pee standing up like her friend Jason. When I mentioned that her anatomy might present a problem, she said "Yeah, I know. It's taking me longer to learn it than he did."

Monday, January 21, 2008

Things to remember

  1. The weight of a tired child in your lap.
  2. Hannah likes "belinda" ice cream best.
  3. Sarah wants to be called "Rogfras" from now on.
  4. They slept in big girl pants and were dry in the morning for the first time last night.
  5. Their different mom lives in pink Disneyland.
  6. Noodles are a better bribe than candy.
  7. At the end of the Christmas pageant, they sang "Glory Had a Luna" and "in chilled things day-o".
  8. They were babies a minute ago.
  9. The warm comma of a sleeping child is a dear thing.
  10. I'm only going to be a rock star to them for a little while longer.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Washcloth Cotton

I recently took an online poll in which you answered a lot of questions about friends and foods and colors, and then it told you what kind of fiber you were. Cute. The members of my former knitting group were mohair (warm and fuzzy) or camel (resilient and unyielding), I was dishcloth cotton. Dependable, hardworking, homebody. Hmmm.

10 Things

10 Things to do.

  1. Make friends with fear.
  2. Take the kids back to China.
  3. Learn to swim elegant laps.
  4. Stop comparing myself to other people and their opinions.
  5. Learn to cook really good Indian food.
  6. Get to the mountains more often.
  7. Get to the ocean more often.
  8. Sit under the grape arbor and knit.
  9. Write more poems.
  10. Be still.