If I didn't know better, I could swear you were adopted...

I am constantly amazed at how different our boys are from each other and how different they can be from me.

This is the last week of J's summer camp before school starts. He and I have spent most of the summer together in an extended commute to and from school. In that time he has taken up some new habits.

The first new habit is reading voraciously. He started with Captain Underpants and moved on to Encyclopedia Brown and then jumped straight into the Hardy Boys. While we know that he skips the hard words, he's getting the story and plot and is energized to learn more. He clearly gets the "love of reading" part of reading that it took me YEARS to find. I remember reading Encyclopedia Brown in 4th grade! It wasn't until High School and Robert Heinlein that got me into real reading for pleasure.

J's second new habit is listening to NPR. I was putting NPR on when he started reading because I figured he was busy and I like to listen to NPR to keep up with events. But recently I noticed that he's not reading, he's listening. And this morning I asked him if he wanted to listen to music or the news, he said "news".

This week we got a new shower radio for our bathroom and I put the old one in the kids' bathroom. J and I were talking about how now he and P could listen to music while they were in the bath. "or the News" he added.

Again, many years did it take me to learn to read the paper, watch the news, listen to NPR. "So boring, so mind numbing" was how I thought about it as a kid.

I am sure that Ryan's scary love of reading and news has influenced J's genetic makeup, but I still marvel at what an individual J has turned out to be.

P announces...

We were boarding the plane to go to Seattle to go to our friend Dave's wedding to Jenny.

P was wearing his favorite shirt...


He says as we step onto the plane...

"I am not voting for Obama, I am voting for McCain because I am sad that Hillary didn't win"

Even more embarrassing was that we spent the next 5 minutes convincing him that a vote for Obama wasn't a vote against Hillary, but that Hillary would want for us to vote for Obama rather than McCain.

He's 4.

I was reading this post by Penelope Trunk about three questions she hates to get.

The last one (You ask me a question that requires more than two paragraphs.) has struck me not because I have trouble explaining my failings...

Like my favorite Jackson Brown line goes...
Don't confront me with my failures
I had not forgotten them
but that I had just come from a meeting which hadn't gone quite like I expected and I was trying to figure out why. I spent a few minutes trying to boil down what happened into a sentence.

This meeting didn't go well solely because of me. Because I thought I had to be involved in every conversation and that I had something interesting to say in every discussion within it.

After the meeting was over, a very kind friend and I were analyzing what happened and he told me in the kindest way that I shouldn't have called the meeting since it wasn't in my realm of concern. And that people might have been uncomfortable because I was the one asking questions about the lack of QA coverage etc.

My initial response was that I saw a need, a vacuum and thought that for the good of the team and the product I needed to raise the issue, but the truth is... I didn't trust enough that everyone was going to do their job and so I wanted to be there to guide them, step by step.

So now I have to have a little talk with myself about how to make my concerns outside my immediate realm expressed in more constructive was rather than that constant mother-view of the world. It's not my job to make sure everyone eats their vegetables, but it is ok to make the suggestion, right?

This weekend I was at a friend's house and their adorable daughter asked me if she could have some ice cream that I was dishing. My response was "can I Please have some ice cream?". It was reflex, and everyone thought it was funny, but in a very mild way it was inappropriate.

So, yes, you may have some ice cream, and QA will be fine.

Wow

This is a breathtaking article about class and the American elite University system.

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/su08/elite-deresiewicz.html

Riddle/Joke

J asked me this riddle the other day...

"You are in a room with four walls, a ceiling and a door that is locked,
how do you get out?"

I didn't know so I guess with "you use a key?"

"No Mom! You only have a PIANO!"

I laughed so much at the mistelling that I had to ask for the answer another day.

"You try all the keys"

oh!

P went in for his 4 year old check up yesterday. Before he was aware that three shots were coming (and the yelling started) the Dr. and I were discussing all the appropriate things that P should be learning at this age.

Stranger Danger
Check

Home phone number and address
Check

Where to go if there is a fire
Check

Don't touch or take any medicine unless you get it from M&D, even if it looks like yummy candy
Check

Gun Safety - don't touch it or pick it up or even pretend to shoot it
...

WHAT!

I contained my moral outrage while he was mentioning this and did not inform him that we don't have any sorts of firearms in the house. Ryan didn't even want to get a Star Wars blaster for J no matter how much he begged.

Then I realized that J & P may actually need some knowledge about guns because they will go to someone else's house, and they may not have trigger locks or gun safes. And this is Texas, so it could be anyone's house, even that ultra-liberal college professor that lives in the back yard. You never know.

So, we will be adding a new scary no-no to the list.

I love this picture

I have been scanning more pictures lately. I raided my mom's closet and found some great shots...

This is my all time favorite from the collection:

While this picture says a lot... Who thought satin was a good choice for a cheerleading costume? How did I get my hair to be so perfectly flipped in Singapore's 100% humidity? The team was called the Packers, which I didn't even realize at the time was an NFL football team, I just thought it was a really stupid name for a team. And who thought Yellow and Green was a good combination?

But that's not my favorite part...it's on the back.

This picture must have been at my Grandma Swanson's originally. In her handwriting is written:











She has written my brother's name and then scratched it out and put mine... as if there was some question at to which GENDER this grandchild was.