Comparison: Babies vs. 11" Dolls

 When D2 was born, people would tell me, "Aw, now you have your own doll to play with, you'll have no time for your other ones," meaning, of course, my Momokos (and JACK!)

Aside from the obvious "your own" bit, because, as we all know, babies are property, as opposed to dolls made out of plastic (amirite?), the statement still made no sense to me, because, I don't know, my Momokos can sit on their shelf and wait for me to get enough sleep to maybe redress them, but babies…. you can't do that with babies.

However, eventually, I started thinking that perhaps I needed to make a comparison write-up, like we do for Fashion Royalty vs. Momokos vs. Obitsu etc.
It took a little longer than I thought, considering D2 is firmly out of babyhood and into a life-affirming toddlerhood, but here it is:

Fun Pic Monday

Hello?, a photo by elfinity on Flickr.

D2 pretends to answer the phone. We do it EVERY evening in the bath. Maybe someone needs to stop talking to clients quite so much >_>

Farm Animal Kingdom

Yesterday, I took D2 to Linvilla Orchards. This, my friends cuttlefish, is a local place that not only, as the name suggests, grows and sells froots and vegetables, but also has a not-petting zoo thing. The reason I call it a not-petting zoo is because the animals are in pens and some of them you are asked not to touch. But you can feed some of them. Just NOT the horse. Even though lots of people still try to. Apparently, illiteracy problem in USA is worse than most of us realize.

Anyway. I knew that I had to take it slow, because this boy notices EVERYTHING, wants EVERYTHING, and so gets overwhelmed easily. So first we went to see the chickens. Because they're dumb and just walk around and don't try to overload you with their antics.

I figured it out

I believe that little babies and kids are all geniuses. Think about it - they have to figure EVERYTHING out. As someone who moved to a different country at some point in her life and had to learn a different language, a different culture and a way of life, I can just begin to appreciate the staggering task that all people accomplish so early in their lives (some better than others, admittedly). A baby has to figure out what those weird things (let's call them "sounds") mean and why those other things (let's call them "parents") keep making them. And why things keep falling down and never up (unless they are what we're going to call "cats", in which case they fall any which way). And how to chew, walk, draw on the walls with crayons, and man, we're just starting here!

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make here is BABIES=GENIUSES.

Now, at some point this changes, and as Bill Cosby so astutely noted, children all have brain damage. We've been through all kinds of Cosbified moments with D1 and I bet we are in for some gems with D2 once he gets older. So, how come?

I figured it out tonight. Because this is D2's current BESTEST idea of fun: he rolls around on the floor and bonks his head on hard surfaces. Then he laughs. Or he runs around, then gets down on his hands and knees, and bonks his head on the floor. Then laughs. Or he is in his swing, and as I'm pushing him, he brings his head backwards, hard, and whacks it on the back of the swing. Then he laughs. Because the brain cells dying must feel absolutely HAI-LARIOUS!
I tried ignoring it in the hopes that he's just doing it to get reaction out of us, but a) it's not helping in the short term and b) there's only so much I can ignore before I step in and try to distract him/cushion his head.
So I guess, maybe it's like a self-destruct program - once it accomplishes what it was meant to do, it self-destructs, lest our civilization becomes full of brilliant people. Because, hey, we wouldn't want that. Who knows, we might've been all over the Solar system, or figured out how to make politicians do some honest work or something, otherwise.

On Hair And Dating

All summer long me and D1 had this argument about his hair. It's curly and longish, and so needs proper care and attention, which my son has difficulty with. For crying out loud, there's been instances of him washing his hair without shampoo, let alone conditioner, and it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that his hair resembles an explosion in a spaghetti factory.
All summer long I've been telling him (maybe every other week or so) that if only he would take a minimally extra care, he'd look so much more presentable. His counterarguments have been ranging from, "Aw, MOOOOOOOOOOOM!" to "Didn't you tell me I've got bigger fish to fry?" (during finals, yes, during do-nothin' summer, no) to "Listen, TheGirl does not like my hair long anyway, she thinks I should cut it."

Now, TheGirl is his current "I'm only going to ever love this one girl, EVER" fancy. He goes through stages where he falls hard for a girl and is completely dead to the rest of female population. Usually, his fancy does not even want to acknowledge his existence, so it's been working out pretty well for me. This one told him at the end of last year when he's made his move that he's too aggressive (in general, not towards her) and she would prefer to just stay friends.
Let me be clear - it's not that I want D1 to be a 27-year-old virgin, but he is only 14 with a brain that sometimes is scarily like that of a toddler. I strongly believe in letting kids be kids and bestow upon them age-appropriate responsibilities first and age-appropriate privileges later. However, the general US parental population seems to think it's ok to let elementary school kids date, so I'm definitely in the minority, and so I have to be cunning.

Yesterday was Rosh Hashanah so the kids were off from school and TheGirl wanted to hang out. I said ok, because also D1 was supposed to hang out with some other friends, so it would be all balanced.
When I got home, I complimented him on how nice his hair looked. I mean, the boy looked like a Caravaggio painting - curls framing his face all nice and ev'rythin', not a frizz on his head. Then we moved on to dinner, D2, the cat, whatever.
Later on that evening, D1 approached me with, "Hey, Mom, since I'm getting "A"s now, could me and TheGirl date?"
Now, the "A"s in question are 2 grades he got for  handing stuff in, not for actual studying. (Yes, that was one of the conditions - better grades before dating was going to be allowed).

What's a mom to do? I did't want to incite another riot by saying "no", but I really didn't want to just simply say "ok, FINE!"
So, instead, I said, "Is this a hypothetical question or has there been actual discussions?" He said that TheGirl initiated the sort of opposite of The Talk ("So, hey, I think we should stop seeing other people.") Actually, I'm being facetious. I don't know how it happened, but it was TheGirl's idea, allegedly.
So I said, "Huh, so I guess she does not find you too aggressive anymore?"
He agreed that, in fact, she does appear to have change her mind on the matter.
I said, "Interesting coincidence, considering how NICE your hair looks today."
He grinned sheepishly and embarrassedly and managed an "Um, yeah."
I said, "How weird that someone kept telling you to style your hair all summer and how a certain somebody would totally change her opinion on your hair if it looked less like a crow's nest, and today it all actually happened! It's like that first someone could see into the future! One might even go so far as to say she may have known what she's talking about."
He said, "Let's not get crazy here."

Meanwhile, now we're talking/bickering about listening to mom and whether she knows what she's talking about, and if it's one instance or a general state of affairs, and NOT, you will note, about whether he should be allowed to date. Mission accomplished.

----

I shared this story with my long-lost-born-in-Ohio-15-years-earlier-than-me Twin, and she said, "Yeah, but… I was dating all through junior high and the ultimate question didn't come up till end of high school."  And my other friend mentioned birth control, because that's really why I'm so worried about my child dating - the boy has no brakes and goes from full stop to full tilt.
BC is all very nice, except for the fact that D1 has horrible track record for using things correctly. He just sort of manhandles things into place and then wonders why they don't work as intended. Not exactly the mentality you want when you think about BC.  Plus, last week, when H was teasing D1 about "wait till you have kids" and D1 said he was never having any, and H laughed that it wasn't up to D1 to decide if he was going to have kids or not, and D1 said he was going to never have sex or, if that wasn't going to work out, he was going to wear 2 condoms at once. I thought, "DUDE, didn't you pay attention in your sex ed class?"

I definitely hope that D1 waits till he's (hopefully) out of college to start, or at least till after high school. Mostly, I hope he does it with a very serious partner who he trusts and hopes to have a (life?)long relationship, but I'm not blind to the fact that a) he thinks that Daddy is God and whatever Daddy did should be emulated, b) said Daddy had D1 when he was 18 and in a very messed up relationship, and c) even though me and D1 have had many many talks about merits of waiting and not screwing up his life, we all know that children don't always listen the way we hope they would.

But hey, if this girl can keep D1's hair in check, and I don't have to look at a Mr. Medusa across the dinner table, maybe I am ok with this dating thing.

The Tortures of Summer

This is How We Roll
Originally uploaded by elfinity

Anyway, because it turned out that my son SUCKS at doing research, and these days kids are supposed to be google-masters and research ninjas, I decided to ruin - RUIN I TELL YOU! - his life for the summer by making him do small research papers. Yeah, I'm bad.
The first research was on a super boring subject of -GASP!- Porsche's first car. Yeah, he loves Porsche and any kind of fast sports car, but researching? You've got to be kidding me! It, like, requires thinking! And actually reading! And some more thinking! Who does this during summer break...

This is us working on finding the right keywords to get the best results, because - who knew - typing "what is porsches first car?" into the search window does not get you much. I tried getting him to figure out that maybe adding "history" to the search keywords might get some good results, but he wasn't having it. For the first 20 minutes.
This is how it went:



Me: So, you typed "Porche fist car" and got results mostly on Porsche 2011 new one. What do all these have in common?
D, after staring at the screen: They.. aaare.. alllll... aboutPorsches?
Me: Ha-ha. Now, seriously?
D: They are about the past?
Me: Right, so, what should we add to the search?
much whining and lamentation follows. H comes in to check on us, is furiously waved away.
Me: Soooo, what science studies the past?
D: IDONNOOOOOOOO!!!! Do I have to do this?
Me: Come on... What science?
silence, interrupted by tiny whinages.
Me, losing patience: Come on, biology?
D, brightening up: Biology!
Me: Seriously? What does biology study?
much whining and lamentations follow, during which H comes back and tries really hard not to help. Finally, he says, "D, think about the first syllable!"
D: Bio... bio... bio... bio... OH! Biology studies the world!
Me, sarcastically: Then what does geography study?
D, wilting: Oh. I DONNOOOOOOOOOOOO.... doIhaftadooooiiiiit?
Me: Yes.
much lamentation and whining follows, during which D DOES come up with the word "history".
He types that in, get a lot of good results and starts lamenting about having to read each of the articles.
The evening passes in similarly cheery atmosphere.



My pose is actually very strategic - you try yelling while laying down. So my pose just actually promotes my patient demeanor and improves my staying power. Highly recommended. Of course, for this to work, you need to have quite an authority over your kid, because they might have trouble taking you seriously when you are laying down. D knows I mean business, though, and that we will stay up till 2 in the morning, if necessary, but will do what we set out to do.

Like I said, I'm bad ^_^

Deep Thoughts from an 11-year-old Mind

Yesterday we had breakfast to celebrate a family occasion. It was me, my son, 2 of my friends (L and C), and a boyfriend of one of the friends (BF).

Now, my son is a complete attention junkie (comes from being about the only child in my circle of friends for the longest time, since most of my friends are either younger, childless, or both), so he was on the roll. BF asked if he liked any girls currently. My son squirmed, then admitted, bashfully, that yes, there was a girl named Abby. When probed for details, this is what he had to say:

My son: Weeeell, in second grade we were friends, then, in third grade, we hated each other...
BF, interrupting politely: So, it was a love/hate relationship?
My son, after thinking about it: No, we just hated each other.
BF: Oh, so just a hate/hate relationship. Just making sure...
My son: Right. Um. So, theeen, in fifth grade, I started thinking, why did she change? And then I realized that it wasn't her who changed, it was actually me who changed!

-Stunned silence from the audience. I feel kinda proud of the deep insightful dude who is my son, but am suspicious, 'cause I know him too well. C looks like she's trying REALLY hard not to give BF Tha Look. BF recovers from the speachlessness;

BF: So, what did you think you changed in?
My son: Weeeell, when we were in third grade, we were talking one time, and I - TOTALLY ACCIDENTALLY! - hit her on the head with a stick.

-audience dies-

BF: I understand it's a pretty common affliction among boys of that age. It's a hand twitch or something, but I understand that it happens a lot.

-curtain-