Sorting games

Through out the time we were raising our daughter Amelia we used to play some sorting type games with her. They were also, underneath, thinking games, and I think at twenty-nine now she would say they have served her well. Here are a couple of them:

Kitch, Klassic or Krap (and yes, they're spelled that way on purpose)

Pick an item, could be nearly any item, and name if it's Kitch, Klassic or Krap.

Pink lawn flamingo - Kitch

Black Converse high tops with white rubber toe caps - Klassic

Those "temporary" ad signs with the big light up arrows and cheesey slogans - Krap

Beaded Spacecraft sculpture, from Etsy's space craft competition - Klassic Kitch? Definately Kool, though. I know, subjective. That's kinda the point, which brings us to -

Obviously, this is a subjective game. It is however one that helps define to us the mind set of the person we're playing with. Hmmm, that might make it a good early-days in a relationship game.
Feel free to steal it for that. I have.


Here's another one. We call this one Insipid or Insidious , and it works better for ideas, strategies, group habbits, etc. Bear in mind some things may be partially or wholly both.

"elevator music" - insipid

consumer or voter manipulation based on fear or guilt - insidious

Most televangelist presentations - ooooh, I'm thinking both.

You can play these two games on your own, silently in your head, and then make people wonder what you're grinning or shaking your head about.

Another game I liked to play with Amelia was Name That Guitar, but unfortunately most music t.v. channels have long since ceased showing enough music videos to keep the game going conveniently. (and I realize that for our purposes here it's maybe too esoteric - ya kinda gotta be a guitar geek to care) Still, I wanted my daughter to be able to tell the difference between a Gibson S-G and a Fender Strat for example. Just a family pride thing I guess.

Ok, how about this one?
Maybe not fair, that's a Fender Jag-stang, the illustrious offspring of a Fender Jaguar and Fender Mustang.

Pardon, I digress.

more later...

Taking Aaron to school

Aaron has been in first grade for about a month now.

The first week we started out walking together, him holding my hand all the way to his class room. After the first day I was the only first grade parent to do that.

Ours is one of those close to an elementary school neighborhoods filled at that time of morning with kids, moms with strollers, grandpas with small dogs, smiling crossing guard ladies with florescent flags... The school is about four blocks away and he would fill that time and space pointing out items of interest - "that cool racing car"(a Nissan 3000 gt)," That cat's name is Max" (one of that particular kind of Siamese who want to be in the middle of everything), "Oh My Gosh that's a huge Christmas tree!"(a Red Wood that fills one corner front yard and up about a hundred feet).

The second week we still walked together, but he didn't seem to need to hold my hand any more, preferring to stroll along on his own, pointing out kids he knows and greeting them, petting Max the Siamese cat, lobbying to take the "short cut"(about half again as long). We've had to have discussions about how most kids are freaked out by being hugged, especially at or near school or in public-it's kinda part of his boggle. He does well on those walks at stopping at corners and waiting for Dad. I only have to tell him to stop once or twice, as opposed to his usual three or four times when he's doing something at home-again, part of his boggle, hard to get his attention.

This last week he has decided it's better to drive there. The first couple of days he wanted me to park the car so I could still walk him to his classroom. Now he'd rather I just drop him off in the turn out so he can walk in on his own, like a "big kid".

I still watch him until he passes by the principal at the door, often stopping for a hug, and is in the school building itself.

Time, as they say, marches on.

I'm going to miss walking him to school.

Noticing, again...

Slide one: Outside, I'm looking at vibrant green moss growing at the base of the plain cement step. Up close at near macro level, the moss presents as fractal, organic and living, against the backdrop of the step. The step by contrast is almost geometrically angular, man made and dead, though it is arguable that even those fused together grains of sand hold some common spark of energy from which, surely all life flows.

This is the kind of stuff that seems of compelling presence to me. Important that someone, apparently me, notices it and stores it away in woefully fallible memory for the record. You know, those records that are in our minds, constantly being made of everything in our lives, to be retrieved at the end by God - someone, or something. Again and again it seems important to me that these small things, small lessons, small miracles of juxta-position or other, be consciously witnessed by someone, and if not me, then who?


Even though I've been ill, chronically if not critically, for some time now. Even though that illness has caused much set back and trouble, fiscal and emotional, even though all those issues are of a certain urgency, I still find these small moments of noticing to be of large, perhaps larger, importance .

It seems a thousand times a day.

Hey, I'm a busy guy.

You just can't see it.

snippet

My older brother G. used to live right next to University of Utah. One night while I was visiting him he wound up having to go down the block to deal with a noise issue. Young presumably college guys were playing loud guitars from a second floor-over the side walk balcony. He did not go to tell them to knock it off, but rather so he could tune up their guitars for them. Imagine being young college guys thinkin' yer Rockin' out cool when some old(40ish) guy comes down the side walk, stops under your balcony and says "look, if you're going to do that, at least let me tune em up for ya boys" life is full of small, cool, yet humbling moments.

Just for fun, here's video from a friend of mine -
Back Porch Buddah - Neighbors

Back to school

Aaron, 6, started the first grade this week.


I was really surprised the first day when he woke and immediately went into full blown sobbing about "But, they won't like me!" After much discussion a /o attempted fatherly type encouragement we finally got down to the point of I gotta go to work, you gotta go to school. Of course once we got him out the door he was fine.

We've been walking the four blocks to school together. It's been good morning Father-Son time.
That's all I've got to say about that.

Why Parenting blogs are like Love - Seriously.

Parenting - it never ends :-)

Recently I've seen Parenting  Blogs mentioned offhandedly in the same way, with the same dismissive "oh, so not cool, so not cerebral enough" fashion that years ago might be reserved for "Peace, Love & Understanding".

Ok, let's reserve peace & understanding for another discussion. There's only so much this father's ineffective little brain can deal with in one go.



Often, I have been as guilty as the next guy of seeing a heart symbol and rolling my eyes & thinking "I love you. You love me. Isn't our love just sweet as can be?" blech.

But those of us who love big know love isn't like that don't we? To some of us the symbol of the heart, (think FLAMING HEART) is actually a symbol of no small import or strength, but rather one invoking recognition of great power, both light and dark. It's not all sunshine and roses, beer and skittles as they say. It's about such heavy duty stuff as compassion, sacrifice, hard emotional work, days and nights of hard fought battles with THE DARK SIDE, as it were.  Think Suzanne Vega's BOUND, or even Z Z Top's BREAK AWAY.  And of course it doesn't have to be about romantic love. Brotherly love or Parental Love can be/is just as big and powerful and full of potential heart break, doom, disaster, fall and hopefully rise as any romantic love, perhaps in many cases more so.

Yeah, yeah, I hear you(or maybe it's me) saying, tell us something we didn't know.

Parenting Blogs are as popular as they are for a good reason. It's BIG-HEAVY-STUFF. Just like Love, part & parcel, as they say, of same. If you're a long time parent you know this, or should, already. But perhaps if you're a non-parent, a new parent, maybe an empty nester now busy with otherwise real life or even are a busy parent who just thinks "Yeah, parenting - just something we do, why talk it to death?" you might not get the why of parenting blogs. Why is because, I think, that for many of us it's THE BIGGEST TRIP WE WILL EVER TAKE. We're filling up bandwidth, eating up disk space and brain space with it cause we're exploring it, trying to make sense of it all, looking for support and giving support, or maybe - just maybe - even just wanting to celebrate it.

All kids have, or are, issues to deal with. Some more than others - differently abled is one current term for some of it.  Take the above mentioned and now square it, upping the difficulty rating and attendant worry,
pride(or self shame), protectiveness, etc., etc., etc. accordingly. The same can be said for other factors - financial hardships, world weirdness, dangerous environments, or just plain head stresses. Yours or the child's.

Did I actually have a point here?  Oh, yeah, I kinda did. It's for myself as much as the collective "you".

The next time you see that cute little pink Heart, or a Parenting Blog mentioned, please, let us all remember, if we might tend to not.  Remember to Recognize & have a  little Respect, a little Pride and simultaneously a little Humility, before the awesome Power of love, and the burden of the Weight of the World, that is Parenting, that is Love.

And now, just for grins, here's Elvis Costello & friends doing a Nick Lowe song.
Yeah, that's Bob's boy Jakob(Dylan) with them.


(What's so funny 'bout) Peace Love & Understanding

The Bath

It's s Sunday evening and Aaron, 6, has just come in from playing across the street at A_____'s  house. It's time for THE BATH. This is always a big deal. He's six. It shouldn't have to be a big deal. It almost always is. We're talking full blown screaming, thrashing, takes two adults to wash his hair kind of big deal. It's bad enough that I sometimes worry that the neighbors might call the cops because they might think we're killing him over here.

Later-After tonight's bath - he shouted(no, screamed) from his room that if he has to take a bath after going to A____'s house, then he doesn't want to go there anymore and he's not her best friend(which he is), he's not going to any one's house, he's just going to stay here all day. I explained to him that whether he went anywhere or not, he still has to have baths.


Did I mention that's he's been diagnosed as mildly autistic (by one bunch, the other bunch isn't sure, I suspect because if they say he is then they have to allot a whole different, greater set of school district assets to him).

I wondering if this is par for this course, or if it's just his own personal weirdness.

Onward through that fog.