conuly

“These Programs Were Never About Terrorism: They’re About Economic Spying, Social Control, and Diplomatic Manipulation. They’re About Power”

http://bit.ly/JEchpJ

It’s Conservatives Who Really Want Christ Out of Christmas

They’re terrified America’s tiny number of atheists will change the meaning of the holiday. But conservatives are the ones who are really at war with its message.

http://thebea.st/1bOLyk1

Outagamie County judge rejects equal protection motion in prostitution case

His argument is that it's plenty fair that prostitutes get charged 40x more frequently than johns, especially in this case because she did it more than once but they were probably first timers. Load of bull if you ask me.

http://post.cr/1gIvJQr

Scientists 'print' new eye cells

http://bbc.in/19wGh0O

The Government Is Quietly Giving Way More Housing Aid To Rich People Than Poor People

So? What else is new?

http://read.bi/JLoN7r

Toddlers and preschoolers appear to understand abstract concepts better if you have them show you their understanding rather than asking them to explain it.

http://on.wsj.com/19Arl1M

5 CIA operations that went south -- spectacularly.

http://atfp.co/JsQ1Px

Poor People Deserve Digital Privacy, Too

http://slate.me/1cqjUqZ

The Trees That Miss The Mammoths

http://bit.ly/1cLmCef

7 New Yorkers About to Lose Their Unemployment Benefits Tell Their Stories

http://nym.ag/1dRJgAf

Last week one of the people waiting to pick up their kidlet from school noticed that said kid (in Ana's class, so first grade) had both shoelaces untied. "Didn't the teacher tie them for you???" "No." (Well, duh.) "Unbelievable!"

Unbelievable? UNBELIEVABLE?

Dude, they spent the greater part of last year learning to tie their shoes. (Except Ana, who already knew. She spent the greater part of the year conniving her teacher into tying them for her. "She can tie her shoes? But I've been doing it for her all this time!" "Well, don't.") There are 23 other students in that class besides your kid, and the teacher has a hundred better things to do every minute than tie their shoes. If she spent her day doing that, I'd like to know when she'd teach!

Now, I didn't learn to tie my shoes until late in my childhood. And nobody, but nobody expected my teachers to tie them for me!

If your kid can't tie their shoes in the first grade, well, it happens, but unlike when *I* was young *you* have the option of getting velcro for kids that big. Or springy laces that don't need tying. I just had to take the laces out of my shoes and go like that. (Or you could invest some serious time in trying to teach this, whatever.) But getting upset that the teacher isn't tying your kid's shoes? At the age of six or seven? That's what's unbelievable.

Heck, earlier this year Ana was late coming out the door because she'd tied her shoes together. The teacher tried to say sorry, but I was too busy laughing to hear her, really, and I didn't think it was her fault anyway. She's got a lot of kids to watch.

And when after getting safely down the stairs Ana took a step a little too big and fell I'm not ashamed to say I pointed out that if she'd spent her time doing something a little more profitable than tying her shoes together, this would never have happened. (Funnily enough, she actually did this again a week or so later, but this time she took smaller steps. Not the lesson *I* would have taken from this experience, but so long as she doesn't hurt herself, I guess.)

As we were walking home from school:

Evangeline: Billy in my class thought I was going to be picked up by my dad, and I said no, I know you're not my dad because my dad... it's a boy, not a girl!
Me: HE's a boy, honey.
Evangeline: Who's a boy?
Me: Your fa- I mean, you should say he's a boy, not it's a boy, we don't usually say "it" when talking about people.
Evangeline: No, if I said he's a boy they'd know he's a he. So I have to say it's a boy.

Can't argue with that logic, I suppose!

They're all here, I'll just pick and choose

( Not much snark this time )

I want to end with the closing paragraphs of the actual article:

Recently, Amy Utzinger, a mother of four in Tucson, Ariz., let her daughter, 7, walk down the block to play with a friend. Five houses. Same side of the street.

Afterward, the friend’s mother drove Mrs. Utzinger’s daughter home. “She said, ‘I just drove her back, just in case ... you know,’ ” recalled Mrs. Utzinger. “What was I supposed to say? How can you argue against ‘just in case’?”

I'll tell you how you argue against 'just in case'. You point out that the risk of dying in a fatal crash is so insanely high that you never let your child enter a car without your permission and stare at this woman as though she's deluded - which she is if she has to drive your kid five houses instead of, you know, walking her... or watching from the porch.

All about race and childhood and unconscious prejudice. You *must* go read it.

( Read more... )

One on a personal experience of Forest Kindergartens, a must-read

One on racism and anger and "Not Being a Racist".

Hey, I'm not a racist* but I think that I don't need to use profanity and petty indignation to express that fact. (This may be the only way to end "I'm not a racist" without sounding like a twit, come to think....)




*At least I don't think I am, and consciously figure the whole thing makes no sense. And I do hope people will smack me (metaphorically) should I ever need it.

Also? It's currently pouring outside. Torrentially. This has been the wettest June ever.

One on a pitcher plant that literally eats shit.

( Read more... )

An article on the changing orders by kids of fast food

( Read more... )

You've probably seen this Snopes page....

Go read the article on the prison

( Read more... )

And another article confirming that TV on even in the background slows speech development.

So you don't want DW accounts, I can see that, but you could've entertained me anyway. I leave the house bored, I come home and it's still boring here!

2. Evangeline is in that age - hold on, let me interrupt you for an Important Bulletin:

Evangeline: Girls go to dance class, boys go to... work. I don't want to be a boy!

This has been an up-to-the-second update on what Evangeline is thinking! Stay tuned for more quotes

-back to what I was saying, she's at that age where every verb, every noun is regularized. One foot, two foots. I do, I doed. I bring, I bringed. Perfectly normal - and it's a step *up* from rote memorization, no matter how it sounds.

Lately, instead of saying "I b'inged this" like she had been, she's started saying "I b'ung it". So she's caught on to the fact that it's a weird formation, but she's still using a more regular form instead of the standard brought (or b'ought, I guess). And yes, I know brung is normal in some dialects.

3. She has some trouble with prepositions. Not literal ones like "Go up" and "Fall down" and "Put in" but the more metaphorical ones - "Is that cooled up yet?", "Slow up!" (I know some people say that. Nobody I know IRL), that sort of thing.

4. In the past few days she has finally - finally - begun making her s-blends. Sometimes. So sometimes it's swim instead of fim, and sting instead of ting. Not all the time, though, and it's clear she's working on it - she'll go ssssss - ting! very carefully.

(I finally set up my wireless again, so I'm totally upstairs while typing. This either rocks or sucks depending on how much computer time you figure I'll have...!)

Their mother hadn't sent Ana's vacation homework up with her, which meant I got stuck with it. That's all right, she just kinda plowed through it. (And yes, I *do* think vacation homework for kindergarten is silly, but I'm told that the other kids in her class have parents who want MORE homework. The mind boggles, let me tell you.)

One of Ana's homeworks (she only has three left for the weekend - the daily "what the weather is" picture, her "my favorite thing I did this week" picture and two sentences, and a math set (they're working with coins) that she didn't want to finish) involved rhyming words. There were four words in each row (in four different rows), three of which rhymed. This was pretty badly done as the non-rhyming word always made a minimal pair with a rhyming word - bug, rug, and rag, for example. It would've been more challenging if they hadn't. But I digress.

The final row had these four words: pin, pen, ten, hen.

Can you see the problem with that? Say the list aloud. If you automatically figure out the problem, gold star! If not, go here. As it happens, I have the pin-pen merger. I think I must have gotten it from my dad, as neither my mother nor sister has it and they used to tease me about it. (Because I didn't get enough of that at school, guys?) I remember sitting in speech (therapy) lessons as a kid, the only year I had actual instruction in those, working it out in my head how weird it was that there was no short-e before n, even when it's written in that way! I literally don't hear it when other people say it unless I'm listening for it, and I feel as though I'm twisting my mouth unnaturally to produce it myself.

So when I saw this I listened with great interest to see what Ana would do.

She carefully read the words (didn't have to sound them out!), and as soon as she got to pin and pen she stopped. Read them again, the whole list. Frowned. Sounded each word out carefully. "Connie, they all rhyme!"

So what do I do? Do I tell her to ignore her instincts and fill out the words that look like they rhyme? That's what she used to do when she was three. Do I let her fill out all of them and look like she didn't get it at all? I compromised by telling her that there's a good reason they put four rhyming words there, telling her to fill them all in, and writing a note to her teacher explaining this. Then, she she was done, I explained the pin-pen merger and talked her through the steps of a simple linguistic survey. We're totally stopping family members to see who has it and who doesn't today!

[Poll #1385210]

This isn't the first time I've had a language quibble with Ana's homework. Once she had to do "initial sounds that match" and one of the examples was a P word with a "pan". Except that I generally say skillet, and she generally says skillet, and when we don't say skillet we say frying pan. But she breezed right through that without a thought, proving that she understands very well how to do worksheets.

She does. Evangeline is a very fluent speaker, moreso for her age than her sister, I think, but Ana communicates better, when she has a mind to. And she's better with conflicts than I think I've ever been, certainly when I was five!

A few weeks ago, for example, she was frustrated with her sister poking over her shoulder as she worked with her paper dolls - a toy that's largely off-limits to Evangeline because she's only three and might reasonably rip them (and anyway, they're Ana's). Instead of doing what I expected from her (and from any five year old, really), which is some combination of whining, screaming, tattling, and pushing, she did something innovative and very effective:

Evangeline: *shoveshovegrab*
Ana: *moving away slightly and turning her body*
Evangeline: ANA! YOU'RE BEING MEAN TO ME!
Ana: I'm sorry, but you can't just do that, I don't want to play with you when you do.
Evangeline: YOU'RE BEING MEAN TO ME!!!
Ana: *workworkwork*
Evangeline: You're being mean to me!
Ana: *workworkityworkwork*
Evangeline: You're being mean.
Ana: *workworkwork*
Evangeline: Can I see that? It's pretty.
Ana: Sure! Here, why don't you help me? You can't do *this*, but you can do *that*.
Evangeline: Okay.
Me: Uh....

I listened to it, and I've thought it over, and for the life of me I can't figure out why it worked. Some of it is Evangeline's more-or-less easygoing personality, but... I don't get it. And yet, it did work, and very well.

Yesterday, she was being chased at the playground by another girl, and she came up to me to tattle and get... I don't know, a hug? Advice? Me yelling at this child? Apparently the girl was chasing her and saying "mean things", but what mean things, I don't know. So we cycled through the options of "Don't chase me" and "I'll tell your mom" and "I don't like that", and finally I grit my teeth and suggested that if all else failed, she could pull a line like "I don't want to chase. That's silly" combined with turning her back on the girl and standing absolutely still. (They can't chase you if you're not running.)

As she was talking to me, the little girl came up, and, in fact - before I gave her that last bit of advice - Ana was already using it. The girl opened her mouth, and Ana turned around and didn't look at her. I *know* I didn't grasp that sort of body language subtlety at her age. There's no way. How does she know these things?

At any rate, some time later the girl came up to her again, and Ana turned to walk away without so much as deigning to reply to her, but the girl said "Wait" and started a civil conversation, something about if Ana could go down the bar slide or not. I was trying desperately to eavesdrop, but I just couldn't get a good spot, and when I did, Evangeline called for me. Grrr.

(Incidentally, I'm very firm with Ana that she mustn't tell lies unless she can tell good lies, which is apparently the same line my father gave me. "You always say that!" she says, and she's right, I *do* always say that. Why? Because it's damn good advice, that's why. If I say I bought something, and Ana says no, Daddy did and he plans to use it for dinner, I know one of us has to be lying and for sure it isn't me. The problem is that she *is* good at lying, she's very convincing. Fortunately, her lies are so a. predictable and b. over-the-top that she's still easily caught in them. She's bound to smarten up sooner or later, though.)

Not very often - I strive to dress her warmly enough that it doesn't come up. (Which reminds me, I wanted to get both of them some nice thermals.) But it has happened.

Today it was cold. It was very cold. And when we all came inside from picking up Ana, they started to play with their dolls. Their dolls... were cold. (Apparently. How they could be cold staying home with the heaters on and tucked under blankets I just don't know. I didn't ask.) They were so cold that, as Evangeline said, her doll, Baby Jill, was "frigering". She said it several times, I didn't mishear it.

And do you know what? From a girl who rarely has cute and unusual utterances, who speaks very clearly and correctly but not, I think, as imaginatively as some other children*, this is beyond adorable. And I can work out exactly how she came up with that translation of "shivering", too!

*_{Not that I'm complaining. But it's fun sometimes listening to children come up with new ways to express themselves to make up for the fact that they just don't speak that well yet (like the boy I saw who wanted to explain that penguins slide on the ice and, lacking the vocabulary, jumped off a chair and bellyflopped on the floor to make his point), and Evangeline... well, she speaks very well indeed. That's all.)}

( In which Ana and Evangeline are total BFFs! )

( In which Evangeline is some sort of anti-procrastination superhero! )

So, Ana used to call her sister Eva-banana. This makes a lot of sense to a four year old, because people often call her Ana-banana. Recently she's started to realize why it doesn't make perfect sense, so now she's trying out combinations like "Eva-baneva" and "Connie-banonnie". I suppose this makes perfect sense to her as a five year old :)

She says "cairon" for crayon. I got bored and quizzed her yesterday:

Me: Can you say "crane"?
Her: C'ane.
Me: Can you say "cradle"?
Her: C'ado
Me: Can you say "crayon"?
Her: Cairon.
Me: Can you say "crazy"?
Her: C'azy.
Me: Can you say... uh...
Ana: Ask her if she can say rock and roll!
Me: *sigh* Can you say rock and roll?
Her: Wock an woll.

So, yes. But crayon, despite all expectations, is consistently cairon.

Where did Ana learn to say "Have you" instead of "Do you have"? I can only think of one situation where I'd say "have you", and that's while singing Baa Baa Black Sheep.

Incidentally, why is it that every time people mention "songs that all have the same melody" they're sure to use Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star as their demonstration (indeed, that's the demonstration tune for every concept ever, doubly for children) with the alphabet song as another with that tune, but never mention Baa, Baa Black Sheep, which uses the same tune as the first two?

Evangeline now uses one contraction that I've heard. Didn't.

She also says "her" for "she", and probably "him" for "he" as well. Ana had a friend who did that until she was five or so. Her kindergarten teacher wasn't worried, but other people noticed it all the time, not just because she was five but, more importantly, because she looked like a seven or eight year old. *sighs* It's tough being tall sometimes.

(He'll literally buy more milk or eggs than he can hope to drink (there are six cartons of milks in the fridge right now) and then toss them the day before the sell-by date because "they go bad".)

We walked in the house when we came here, and there are bags of avocados. Guess they're cheaper in California than back home, right? Home, they're a dollar apiece - when they're in season, and if they're on sale. I think I'll buy a few bags to bring home with me when I leave, and I'm asking my mom to do the same. I love me some guacamole, but it's a treat, because avocados are just so expensive!

( 'cdotes )

I don't think Ana will do soccer this year - soccer for fives conflicts with gardening, and she alternates between loving and hating it. We'll do something more informally.

But she is still four until next Thursday, so we tried it one more time to see if she'd gotten over her issues with the coaches (she's holding a grudge because one of them corrected her once, which is why she doesn't like soccer all the time. This was nine months ago, and the program only runs May through October anyway), and she hadn't. I was with a friend of mine whom I *really wish* hadn't come, because her children are not old enough for the program, named "soccer for fours". Yes, last year they said her little ones could join in, but they should not have said that. This woman had to hover over her two and chase them around the whole time, and it just got in the way of the four year olds - the program is for kids who can more or less do what the coach tells them while their adults sit on the side and provide water.

Another woman was there with her two year old, and I was playing the silly game with Evangeline, and Evangeline said, finally, that my name is not Eva. Who am I, I asked? "You are Connie!"

Other woman thought that saying "are" is adorable, instead of just saying "you Connie" or even "Connie" - I totally didn't get this because, of course, are has been in her vocabulary almost since she started using sentences. She's a very verbal child.

Doesn't use contractions, though. Oh, she did - for about three weeks, when she started using sentences. Then she realized that contractions are, well, contractions, and since then she hasn't used a one. It's always "That is FUNNY" and "You are being SI-YEE!" and "I can not, Connie!" (her whine every time she's frustrated before even trying to do something) and even sometimes "I did verb" in situations where normally we would not say "I did" but just "I verbed".

Nary a contraction in the lot, ever.

Just call her Data. I do... or I would if calling her Evangelooney weren't more fun.

(Oh, and another example of not using contractions? We were playing Sleeping Queens today (it's a fun game, even for adults, and Evangeline can REALLY PLAY IT if we keep her from bending the cards and help her distinguish some of the power cards. She's even won a few times), and at one point Evangeline had a chance to take a queen from another player, and she decided to take one of MY queens, even though Ana had more cards and was therefore closer to winning. (Ana also had a dragon, which would have prevented the queen from being stolen, so she got irritated by this, but I'm the one with a view of her cards, not Evangeline.) When asked why she did this, Evangeline answered (sensibly, I think, although it does indicate very clearly the need for good sportsmanship!) that she didn't take Ana's card because "Then she will cry if I take her card, Nanen. My sister will cry." I don't cry, of course - I'm a grown-up, and am expected to Set a Good Example... even if I'm losing to a two-year-old, and if you can't reasonably cry then, when can you cry?)

Children running outside in the snow. Nearly naked.

Not that surprising when you consider that I know several very young children who would jump at the chance to do just that. What is it with kids and taking off all their clothes the second they can? They can practically see their breath some days, and what do they do? Run around naked!

Welcome to my life, where it's all naked, all the time. *sighs* But at least I can say that I hardly ever splash them with cold water.