So today I picked up the eldest from school and rather than listening to talk radio like I normally do, I had the local classic rock station on. Sometimes I just want good music rather than a rehash of global drama. Plus, I suspected a lot of today's talk would be about the royal wedding, which I have been avoiding like the plague. (Although I did envy Kate Middleton's dress. Classic and lovely.)
So eldest asks me what "living like a refugee" is like, since I turned the song up because I happen to like Tom Petty. I explained a little bit about war refugees and how they have to run or be imprisoned or killed, and he completely surprised me with an insightful response, "So the song is saying it's better to face your fears and fight through them rather than keep running from them." Yeah, sorta. Sheesh. Every now and then he does this and makes me think.
The next song begins and we're not far from home. I like this one too so I turn it up. Out of the corner of my eye I see him rocking out to air guitar, so I ask, "Like this one, eh?" He says "Yep, I like rock, and I like....country western." Eck. He didn't get that from me. Old country western and gangsta rap are on the very short list of music I don't like. I can tolerate some modern country rock, but I cannot listen to the twangy old stuff, I just can't.
We get to our driveway and the song is in the middle, so we sit in the driveway and listen all the way through. Usually he jumps right out of the car, but not this time. "I like rock, and this song sounds like good new rock to me." Ok, cool, but the song isn't 'new'. 'I Wanna Rock and Roll All Night' was in fact recorded by Kiss in 1975. My eldest is astounded. "They made music like this back then? It's still good!" Yes, yes it is.
And my son is now an enthusiastic member of the Kiss Army. Rock on!
Friday, April 29, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
This Day is For Cleaning Up the Rest of The Week
Today was Catch-Up day, at least in my world. I caught up on my job hunting, my laundry (ugh), folding my laundry (double ugh), and dishes (so ugh it's beyond at least a triple). I also put out the garbage can, added a bag to it before the trash truck showed up, and in general was puttering around the house like I owned it and actually had responsibility for cleaning it up now and then. (Er, I do.)
I savored a bowl of the aforementioned chicken soup for lunch, mmmm. It never gets old. Well, it would if I didn't finish it, but I'll finish it. I have absolute confidence in that. Even with nigh a gallon staring me in the face.
Plans to catch up on my pizza-dough-making prowess went well, until dinner was derailed by an unfortunate mistake. I'm used to keeping the bowls with the rising dough in the oven, out of drafts and warm, until I need to use it. Husband turned on said oven to pre-heat it while I was at the store getting cheese and sauce. Oops. We went to Wendy's.
This is the second pair of mixer bowls that have been destroyed by my husband, quite by accident. The first pair were glass and set on top of a cupboard, from which he knocked them down and they exploded into smithereens. It was very loud and kind of fascinating to watch, like people with broken bottles in a mosh pit. Not so much to clean up.
My second go-round with mixer bowls, I went for the metal ones figuring they wouldn't explode. But now they've got plastic wrap melted firmly on to them. So firmly I can't see where it ends and the bowls begin. I have a theory that freezing them might work, if I can clear out enough space in the freezer to try.
If not, I'm happy to shop online for replacements. I haven't shopped online in a while. Time to catch up.
P.S. - Husband - I know you feel absolutely terrible. But in a strange sort of way you made me feel happy. I can't explain it. It's probably the humor I see in a "mixing bowl curse" Befalling My House. Hehe.
I savored a bowl of the aforementioned chicken soup for lunch, mmmm. It never gets old. Well, it would if I didn't finish it, but I'll finish it. I have absolute confidence in that. Even with nigh a gallon staring me in the face.
Plans to catch up on my pizza-dough-making prowess went well, until dinner was derailed by an unfortunate mistake. I'm used to keeping the bowls with the rising dough in the oven, out of drafts and warm, until I need to use it. Husband turned on said oven to pre-heat it while I was at the store getting cheese and sauce. Oops. We went to Wendy's.
This is the second pair of mixer bowls that have been destroyed by my husband, quite by accident. The first pair were glass and set on top of a cupboard, from which he knocked them down and they exploded into smithereens. It was very loud and kind of fascinating to watch, like people with broken bottles in a mosh pit. Not so much to clean up.
My second go-round with mixer bowls, I went for the metal ones figuring they wouldn't explode. But now they've got plastic wrap melted firmly on to them. So firmly I can't see where it ends and the bowls begin. I have a theory that freezing them might work, if I can clear out enough space in the freezer to try.
If not, I'm happy to shop online for replacements. I haven't shopped online in a while. Time to catch up.
P.S. - Husband - I know you feel absolutely terrible. But in a strange sort of way you made me feel happy. I can't explain it. It's probably the humor I see in a "mixing bowl curse" Befalling My House. Hehe.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Good for the Soul
I feel like I'm saving money and being thrifty when I can get two meals out of one thing, like making an extra batch of something or, in today's example, using the carcass of the chicken we had for Easter dinner. I have my mother's recipe for chicken soup and it's one of my most favorite comfort foods. Plus I'm weird and find picking apart the boiled carcass for the good bits almost zen-like.
I matched the organic chicken (ten dollars more expensive at the front, but good for our bodies later on, I'm sure) with organic carrots and organic celery, some simple seasonings, an onion and some rice. Four hours later the house is filled with the most delicious smell ever, one that reminds me of Mom's house and the way her brand of rice would split and curl at both ends, giving it an interesting texture in my mouth and making me unable to stop eating it.
My brand of rice doesn't split and curl, but I add twice as much because I love rice. Sometimes I'll cook extra and add more in as I go until there's more rice than broth. This elicits the comments that I may as well make chicken with rice if that's how I want it, but the rice takes up the broth so nicely.
And that golden broth is to die for too. Yes I know the golden bubbles on top are chicken fat. Delicious. I could drink it. I may do so tonight, since I feel like a cold could be trying to invade my serenity. Nothing like a healthy dose of chicken fat and vegetables to kill off any nasty thing looking to knock you down.
The best part ever is that it gets better with time, and since my kids snub it (too much "stuff" in it), I'll be eating it for lunch for a week. With a nice little mini loaf of French bread and some butter....some strawberries for dessert....I don't know why I haven't eradicated the common cold single-handed by now. Of course, then there would be one less excuse to make chicken soup by hand.
Thanks for the recipe Mom.
I matched the organic chicken (ten dollars more expensive at the front, but good for our bodies later on, I'm sure) with organic carrots and organic celery, some simple seasonings, an onion and some rice. Four hours later the house is filled with the most delicious smell ever, one that reminds me of Mom's house and the way her brand of rice would split and curl at both ends, giving it an interesting texture in my mouth and making me unable to stop eating it.
My brand of rice doesn't split and curl, but I add twice as much because I love rice. Sometimes I'll cook extra and add more in as I go until there's more rice than broth. This elicits the comments that I may as well make chicken with rice if that's how I want it, but the rice takes up the broth so nicely.
And that golden broth is to die for too. Yes I know the golden bubbles on top are chicken fat. Delicious. I could drink it. I may do so tonight, since I feel like a cold could be trying to invade my serenity. Nothing like a healthy dose of chicken fat and vegetables to kill off any nasty thing looking to knock you down.
The best part ever is that it gets better with time, and since my kids snub it (too much "stuff" in it), I'll be eating it for lunch for a week. With a nice little mini loaf of French bread and some butter....some strawberries for dessert....I don't know why I haven't eradicated the common cold single-handed by now. Of course, then there would be one less excuse to make chicken soup by hand.
Thanks for the recipe Mom.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
I Know Where the Sidewalk Ends
Today I was bringing my youngest to school in the morning, admiring the little drops of rain stuck in the grass and how they looked like jewels in the sun, when he piped up asking for a story about the "mystery sidewalk".
By way of explanation, the "mystery sidewalk" is a length of concrete sidewalk embedded in the front lawn of the elementary school. It comes from down the hill near the expansion trailers, comes up the hill through the grass, makes a single left turn and...stops. In the middle of the grass. My son and I have looked upon it dozens if not hundreds of times, wondering why it was there, who put it there, and why they stopped. Of course there are practical reasons for this, most likely. But what fun are those? One day I made up a story about the sidewalk being hit by moonlight just once a year, at midnight on a full moon night during a month with three full moons....and if you waited patiently a silver path would appear leading up into the stars, and you could follow it up into a land made of stars and stardust, and meet the aliens living there. Or something like that. I spun it off the top of my head to amuse my son.
He never has looked at that slab of concrete quite the same way since.
Today he asked me for another story about the sidewalk. So today the sidewalk had a trapdoor at its end that opened up and dropped you down down down, through the darkness into the center of the earth, where there was a gleaming city made all of crystal, with a spindly crystal track wound like cobwebs around the towers upon which a sparkling train runs under a subterranean sun.
While I was contemplating this in my mind's eye, fashioning crystal/silicon robots to walk spindly crystal dogs, he piped up with, "Tell me another one."
The next story detailed how the builders of the sidewalk had just put in the last slab when a huge and unusual gust of wind swept them up, up, up into the sky, among huge piled white clouds that tasted of icy vanilla. How the wind-people's castles weren't made in the usual way, with blocks of stone, but fashioned by hand from the yummy clouds, and that you could eat them, but you had to be careful not to eat through the floors or you'd fall through right back to earth.
"Tell me another one."
By this time we were almost to his class door, so I told him about how one day some kids were standing on the last slab and suddenly found themselves in a world of giant flowers and bugs! (This, because he's currently studying bugs in school.) The kids had been shrunk by the magic of the sidewalk into a land full of flower palaces and ladybug princesses, running on paths between grass blades in a half-lit world of gold and green.
My reward for spinning fantastical tales about a slab of plain concrete? Smiles that showed me he was thinking about and enjoying the stories, a hug and a kiss, and... when he got out of class this afternoon...
"Tell me another one?"
By way of explanation, the "mystery sidewalk" is a length of concrete sidewalk embedded in the front lawn of the elementary school. It comes from down the hill near the expansion trailers, comes up the hill through the grass, makes a single left turn and...stops. In the middle of the grass. My son and I have looked upon it dozens if not hundreds of times, wondering why it was there, who put it there, and why they stopped. Of course there are practical reasons for this, most likely. But what fun are those? One day I made up a story about the sidewalk being hit by moonlight just once a year, at midnight on a full moon night during a month with three full moons....and if you waited patiently a silver path would appear leading up into the stars, and you could follow it up into a land made of stars and stardust, and meet the aliens living there. Or something like that. I spun it off the top of my head to amuse my son.
He never has looked at that slab of concrete quite the same way since.
Today he asked me for another story about the sidewalk. So today the sidewalk had a trapdoor at its end that opened up and dropped you down down down, through the darkness into the center of the earth, where there was a gleaming city made all of crystal, with a spindly crystal track wound like cobwebs around the towers upon which a sparkling train runs under a subterranean sun.
While I was contemplating this in my mind's eye, fashioning crystal/silicon robots to walk spindly crystal dogs, he piped up with, "Tell me another one."
The next story detailed how the builders of the sidewalk had just put in the last slab when a huge and unusual gust of wind swept them up, up, up into the sky, among huge piled white clouds that tasted of icy vanilla. How the wind-people's castles weren't made in the usual way, with blocks of stone, but fashioned by hand from the yummy clouds, and that you could eat them, but you had to be careful not to eat through the floors or you'd fall through right back to earth.
"Tell me another one."
By this time we were almost to his class door, so I told him about how one day some kids were standing on the last slab and suddenly found themselves in a world of giant flowers and bugs! (This, because he's currently studying bugs in school.) The kids had been shrunk by the magic of the sidewalk into a land full of flower palaces and ladybug princesses, running on paths between grass blades in a half-lit world of gold and green.
My reward for spinning fantastical tales about a slab of plain concrete? Smiles that showed me he was thinking about and enjoying the stories, a hug and a kiss, and... when he got out of class this afternoon...
"Tell me another one?"
Monday, April 25, 2011
That's a lotta dough....
Today is a late post because the day was filled with Stuff To Do. However, I can't go on about that without mentioning some Stuff We Did over the weekend.
Coloring eggs...my two boys each chose red and green for their favorites. And those, of course, came out brightest. The blue and purple came out weird and speckled. I don't know why those colors always do that, but they do. This time I even remembered to put the eggs back in the refrigerator later.
The next morning was the Easter Egg hunt on church grounds. I don't know specifically why it's a hunt when all they do is roll them on the lawn and let the kids dive for them, but there it is. My older son is too old to participate, so he helps load the eggs with goodies instead. My younger one can still try. This year he got a grand total of four eggs, because the stimulation overload is too much for him and he wanders in circles uncertain of which eggs to pick while the other kids grab them all. He looked cute though.
In a spate of ambition I decided to turn the new whole wheat flour into bread. In a further turn to the unwise, I decided to make two loaves at once. Eight and a half cups of flour makes a lot of dough. A lot. Like a basketball size. And this basketball needs to be repeatedly pummeled until it forms gluten. This process takes a long time and a lot of muscle when done by hand. A day and a half later my shoulders are still sore. Notice I don't have any photos of the kneading. It's because my fingers were too worn out.
As a result of slight under-kneading (gee I wonder why...owwwww) the loaves are dense, but they're moist and taste delicious. Besides the wheat flour, there's milk, oil and honey in them, with yeast to make them airy (haha). Next time I'm cutting the recipe in half and cutting the wheat flour with white flour, half and half. That should lighten up the dough. I'm nothing if not optimistic.
Besides nearly giving myself a hernia making wheat bread by hand, I also cooked Easter dinner. That day pretty much wiped me out.
Which is why I decided today to finish giving the dried decorative grasses in the yard a haircut and prune some shrubberies, then clean up the front and back yard, filling two lawn and leaf bags, the 50 gallon kind, today. In between the rain. Oh, and then I went out to the middle school jubilee for three hours to sample my elder son's cooking, as he was in a special program where the high school kids in trade school mentored middle school kids to teach them cool stuff. He looks awesomely cute in a chef coat.
When I get energy, I use it up hard. I think I'll have some wheat toast for breakfast tomorrow.
Coloring eggs...my two boys each chose red and green for their favorites. And those, of course, came out brightest. The blue and purple came out weird and speckled. I don't know why those colors always do that, but they do. This time I even remembered to put the eggs back in the refrigerator later.
The next morning was the Easter Egg hunt on church grounds. I don't know specifically why it's a hunt when all they do is roll them on the lawn and let the kids dive for them, but there it is. My older son is too old to participate, so he helps load the eggs with goodies instead. My younger one can still try. This year he got a grand total of four eggs, because the stimulation overload is too much for him and he wanders in circles uncertain of which eggs to pick while the other kids grab them all. He looked cute though.
In a spate of ambition I decided to turn the new whole wheat flour into bread. In a further turn to the unwise, I decided to make two loaves at once. Eight and a half cups of flour makes a lot of dough. A lot. Like a basketball size. And this basketball needs to be repeatedly pummeled until it forms gluten. This process takes a long time and a lot of muscle when done by hand. A day and a half later my shoulders are still sore. Notice I don't have any photos of the kneading. It's because my fingers were too worn out.
As a result of slight under-kneading (gee I wonder why...owwwww) the loaves are dense, but they're moist and taste delicious. Besides the wheat flour, there's milk, oil and honey in them, with yeast to make them airy (haha). Next time I'm cutting the recipe in half and cutting the wheat flour with white flour, half and half. That should lighten up the dough. I'm nothing if not optimistic.
Besides nearly giving myself a hernia making wheat bread by hand, I also cooked Easter dinner. That day pretty much wiped me out.
Which is why I decided today to finish giving the dried decorative grasses in the yard a haircut and prune some shrubberies, then clean up the front and back yard, filling two lawn and leaf bags, the 50 gallon kind, today. In between the rain. Oh, and then I went out to the middle school jubilee for three hours to sample my elder son's cooking, as he was in a special program where the high school kids in trade school mentored middle school kids to teach them cool stuff. He looks awesomely cute in a chef coat.
When I get energy, I use it up hard. I think I'll have some wheat toast for breakfast tomorrow.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Good Friday...In More Than One Way
Today I decided to do some things for myself, as the pressure is high towards the end of the week when I have to have my five job contacts for unemployment (not that they've paid me even a dime yet).
I don't know how I feel about that...I've always had a steady job, whether part or full time, since I was old enough to work. Except for two years I took off to be a stay-at-home mom to my young kids (and even then I was part-time volunteer game-mastering on a text-based MUD), I've always worked. I'm a little annoyed that I have to prove I deserve the money I've been putting into the system for twenty five years now. And that I have to prove it by applying for jobs I'm not certain I want five times a week until I get one. The requirements for me to get my own money back are ridiculous, but I suppose if you pressed me I'd admit they have to control fraud and make sure that money is going to the right person for the right reasons.
I do want to work again. But I want the right to be selective and choose a job I'll be happy with, not just one I may have all the requirements for but am uninterested in.
So it was with the aim of kicking all those grumpy thoughts away that I went out into the windy sunny day, a crisp one, and got my hair cut with my favorite stylist. I've been going to her for a couple years, she knows exactly how I like my hair but she'll alter it if I ask, and we both chat away about our families and what's happening in the world without a care for the time. I'm suspecting I may need to move for a new job (again), and I'm dreading losing my favorite stylist. For a woman, losing a stylist who knows exactly what you want and can deliver it consistently month after month is traumatic. Such a stylist is worth her weight in gold. Not to mention if you also happen to connect on other levels and consider her a friend....ugh. I'm starting to believe it's the stylists making me leave my jobs and have to move....every time I find an outstanding one, blammo!
After the haircut, which allowed me to see out from under my hair roof again, I headed for a local world market shop to look over their Easter stuff for the boys. Alright, and also to drool over the foods from the UK, France, Germany and Italy that they stock there. There's something fun about buying and trying one exotic food you've never had from another country. (I haven't quite worked up the spit to try Vegemite quite yet, but I look at it every time I'm in there.)
It's tradition in my family to get a lovely (and large!) solid milk chocolate rabbit from Hebert's Candy Mansion, which alas, is in Massachusetts. The place goes all-out at Easter; I remember thinking it was Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory when I was a kid.
I have to rely on my Mom to ship the bunnies these days, if we've got the extra bit of money. If we don't, as in this year, I shop for look-alikes. I remember taking my Hebert's chocolate rabbit and putting it on an old iron steam radiator that was just barely warm, letting the chocolate soften just that little bit, then biting in....ohhh heaven is a chocolate bunny's rump, slightly warm. No, there was never a chocolate accident on the steam radiator...I value my chocolate much too highly for that ever to happen.
This year I picked up smaller chocolate bunnies for the boys, plus some jellybeans, some cocoa because they just geek over cocoa (chocolate you can drink!), and assorted little non-candy items...kazoos, pencils, egg soaps, and the like. I just love putting all these little things in the baskets and letting them discover them all.
When they were littler and in total belief in The Bunny, I loved watching their eyes get huge and the big smiles spreading across their faces. They still appreciate the little gifts, but some of that cottontail magic has waned in the older one. The younger one I think still holds some belief. I can't tell, he plays his cards close to the chest. If I can get this year out of him I'll be happy.
After basket shopping I went over to Target and picked up some new t-shirts because lately for some reason I've been a total slob and I put stains on the fronts of many of my other serviceable t-shirts. I can't even tell what I was eating to do that. The food didn't land in my lap, I didn't drool while eating, so what the heck? I can't figure it out. I probably need to tuck a napkin in my collar like one of the Three Stooges, or wear a rain poncho.
I also have big plans for the bag of whole wheat flour I bought, but we shall see. Perhaps tomorrow. The smell of bread baking has totally broken my resolve before. If I were a spy that the NSA had to break, all they'd have to do would be to bake some bread and I'd spill it all. Shameful I know, but at least I know my limitations. The thought of guys in black suits and shades baking bread cracks me up too. Little frilly white aprons over the suits, with the guns in the holsters....*snort, giggle*
Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate it. To those who don't...happy weekend, I hope yours is sunny, warm, and fun.
I don't know how I feel about that...I've always had a steady job, whether part or full time, since I was old enough to work. Except for two years I took off to be a stay-at-home mom to my young kids (and even then I was part-time volunteer game-mastering on a text-based MUD), I've always worked. I'm a little annoyed that I have to prove I deserve the money I've been putting into the system for twenty five years now. And that I have to prove it by applying for jobs I'm not certain I want five times a week until I get one. The requirements for me to get my own money back are ridiculous, but I suppose if you pressed me I'd admit they have to control fraud and make sure that money is going to the right person for the right reasons.
I do want to work again. But I want the right to be selective and choose a job I'll be happy with, not just one I may have all the requirements for but am uninterested in.
So it was with the aim of kicking all those grumpy thoughts away that I went out into the windy sunny day, a crisp one, and got my hair cut with my favorite stylist. I've been going to her for a couple years, she knows exactly how I like my hair but she'll alter it if I ask, and we both chat away about our families and what's happening in the world without a care for the time. I'm suspecting I may need to move for a new job (again), and I'm dreading losing my favorite stylist. For a woman, losing a stylist who knows exactly what you want and can deliver it consistently month after month is traumatic. Such a stylist is worth her weight in gold. Not to mention if you also happen to connect on other levels and consider her a friend....ugh. I'm starting to believe it's the stylists making me leave my jobs and have to move....every time I find an outstanding one, blammo!
After the haircut, which allowed me to see out from under my hair roof again, I headed for a local world market shop to look over their Easter stuff for the boys. Alright, and also to drool over the foods from the UK, France, Germany and Italy that they stock there. There's something fun about buying and trying one exotic food you've never had from another country. (I haven't quite worked up the spit to try Vegemite quite yet, but I look at it every time I'm in there.)
It's tradition in my family to get a lovely (and large!) solid milk chocolate rabbit from Hebert's Candy Mansion, which alas, is in Massachusetts. The place goes all-out at Easter; I remember thinking it was Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory when I was a kid.
I have to rely on my Mom to ship the bunnies these days, if we've got the extra bit of money. If we don't, as in this year, I shop for look-alikes. I remember taking my Hebert's chocolate rabbit and putting it on an old iron steam radiator that was just barely warm, letting the chocolate soften just that little bit, then biting in....ohhh heaven is a chocolate bunny's rump, slightly warm. No, there was never a chocolate accident on the steam radiator...I value my chocolate much too highly for that ever to happen.
This year I picked up smaller chocolate bunnies for the boys, plus some jellybeans, some cocoa because they just geek over cocoa (chocolate you can drink!), and assorted little non-candy items...kazoos, pencils, egg soaps, and the like. I just love putting all these little things in the baskets and letting them discover them all.
When they were littler and in total belief in The Bunny, I loved watching their eyes get huge and the big smiles spreading across their faces. They still appreciate the little gifts, but some of that cottontail magic has waned in the older one. The younger one I think still holds some belief. I can't tell, he plays his cards close to the chest. If I can get this year out of him I'll be happy.
After basket shopping I went over to Target and picked up some new t-shirts because lately for some reason I've been a total slob and I put stains on the fronts of many of my other serviceable t-shirts. I can't even tell what I was eating to do that. The food didn't land in my lap, I didn't drool while eating, so what the heck? I can't figure it out. I probably need to tuck a napkin in my collar like one of the Three Stooges, or wear a rain poncho.
I also have big plans for the bag of whole wheat flour I bought, but we shall see. Perhaps tomorrow. The smell of bread baking has totally broken my resolve before. If I were a spy that the NSA had to break, all they'd have to do would be to bake some bread and I'd spill it all. Shameful I know, but at least I know my limitations. The thought of guys in black suits and shades baking bread cracks me up too. Little frilly white aprons over the suits, with the guns in the holsters....*snort, giggle*
Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate it. To those who don't...happy weekend, I hope yours is sunny, warm, and fun.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
From the Wild West to the Wilder Future....
So last night my husband and I introduced our elder son to The Matrix in all its leather-clad, martial-arts-fighting, gun-toting glory. We of course were careful to explain how all the special effects were done, because he has an odd tendency to watch an entire obviously fantastical movie and then ask if it was real. I can't decide if he's doing that to test us to see if we know what's fantasy and what's reality, or if he genuinely thinks some of it might be true.
He also has a strong tendency to ask questions throughout the entire movie. Things that have no relevance at all to what's going on, like, "Why'd he decide to wear that today?" and more annoying things like, "What happens next???" Dude, that's why the movie isn't over yet....so you can find out what happens next. Stop talking and watch!
My elder son is an extremely verbal person. He's always talking unless his nose is in a book, at which point you have to hold a bullhorn to his ear and shout his name five times before he'll blink and look up. He got the bookworm thing from me. The endless talking? I have no idea. For the most part his questions and comments are smart and right to the point. His teachers love talking with him, they've told me. But get him going on a favorite subject like video games or movies and you'll be lucky if he lets you get a single word in edgewise.
He has high-functioning Asperger's according to the children's hospital in Michigan, which explains the concentrations on his favorites like video games and movies, and his sometimes oblivious response to others who are supposed to be able to contribute to the conversation. It's probably why he'll talk endlessly through a movie, and just when you thought he's missed something he'll re-tell the entire movie to you scene by scene without missing the fact that Agent Smith's cool-looking glasses got a lens knocked askew in one of the dozens of fights, or that Neo got a crispy cookie from the Oracle, even after he broke her vase.
This kid is going to be great at public speaking; we just have to find him something he loves to speak about, wind him up, and let him go. With the curiousity he displays about everything I would be glad, as Morpheus says, to follow him down the rabbit hole and see where it goes.
He also has a strong tendency to ask questions throughout the entire movie. Things that have no relevance at all to what's going on, like, "Why'd he decide to wear that today?" and more annoying things like, "What happens next???" Dude, that's why the movie isn't over yet....so you can find out what happens next. Stop talking and watch!
My elder son is an extremely verbal person. He's always talking unless his nose is in a book, at which point you have to hold a bullhorn to his ear and shout his name five times before he'll blink and look up. He got the bookworm thing from me. The endless talking? I have no idea. For the most part his questions and comments are smart and right to the point. His teachers love talking with him, they've told me. But get him going on a favorite subject like video games or movies and you'll be lucky if he lets you get a single word in edgewise.
He has high-functioning Asperger's according to the children's hospital in Michigan, which explains the concentrations on his favorites like video games and movies, and his sometimes oblivious response to others who are supposed to be able to contribute to the conversation. It's probably why he'll talk endlessly through a movie, and just when you thought he's missed something he'll re-tell the entire movie to you scene by scene without missing the fact that Agent Smith's cool-looking glasses got a lens knocked askew in one of the dozens of fights, or that Neo got a crispy cookie from the Oracle, even after he broke her vase.
This kid is going to be great at public speaking; we just have to find him something he loves to speak about, wind him up, and let him go. With the curiousity he displays about everything I would be glad, as Morpheus says, to follow him down the rabbit hole and see where it goes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)