How Long 'Til This Hits Our Shores?

Someone posted this article to one of the email lists I'm on last week--the article's dated Oct. 29, so it's possible that sanity has returned, but I'm not betting on it.

From the Daily Mail:

Parents are being banned from playing with their children in council recreation areas because they have not been vetted by police.

Mothers and fathers are being forced to watch their children from outside perimeter fences because of fears they could be paedophiles.

Watford Council was branded a 'disgrace' yesterday after excluding parents from two fenced-off adventure playgrounds unless they first undergo criminal record checks.

Basically, until proven innocent, parents are assumed to be perverts and are being prevented from playing with their kids. So who will monitor the kids (other than from behind the fences)? Government employees, of course.

Children as young as five will instead be supervised by council 'play rangers' who have been cleared by the Criminal Records Bureau.

Insane. Utterly insane.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1223528/Parents-banned-supervising-children-playgrounds--case-paedophiles.html#ixzz0WUoZQDVJ

Living with the Top of Our Son's Head

This is pretty much all we've seen over the last week of Frodo. It's mostly encouraging, but a little strange at the same time.

Frodo, like his siblings, reads more than your average kid--he really has no choice in this household, like I've intended it all along (TLomL has intended it, too...probably not as intensely as me).^* I should add that it's not all by coercion, he actually enjoys reading. Granted, he's not at the level I was at his age, but that's probably a good thing. He might actually have a social life in a couple of years.

Things changed a week ago, though. After repeated suggestions from his parents over the last few months, he pulled down Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone from the shelf and dove in. I'm not going to be one of the roughly 97 bazillion people to use the line about Rowling casting a spell on him, but...she basically did that. He's been plowing through them at a rate he's never hit before--seven days after he started Sorcerer's Stone, he started in on Half-Blood Prince. Samwise has been following his lead, but not at the same rate.

What's more, he's devoted hours to this project--he's ignored opportunities to play outside, to play video games (not every opportunity, mind you), to do basically everything he normally does so that he can sit with a Potter novel open in front of him.

I do realize that parents all over the world have experience this phenomenon. It's just great to see this in action. Never would've figured the top of his head would be such a great thing to look at (cowlick and all).


^* Can I legally call that a sentence? Someone grab a Defibrillator for my inner-editor...

Note from the Parenting Front

One of the privileges we get as parents is to watch our kids grow up, to transform out of the little helpless and self-centered balls of flesh that only care about eating, sleeping, and filling diapers into odd little rug rats and then into (if God is gracious) proto-adults who might actually be worth the time and effort we parents extended, and beyond (haven't gotten to the next stage yet with mine, so I can't cynically describe it).

Samwise isn't quite at the last stage I described yet, but he's getting closer. The last couple of weeks have brought some medical issues into our conversations--one involving my sister (she's fine, but it was a long and complicated road to find out there's nothing wrong with her...medically, anyway) and another involving something happening at TLoML's workplace. While not trying to suggest that his siblings didn't care, Sam always appeared more thoughtful (usually with a shade of troubled) and asked follow-up questions. The others took what I told them at face value, and got on with life. Sam thought about it, and then asked questions that displayed a care for the well-being/health/safety of the person, the nature of the issue (esp. as it would affect others). At least twice, he asked something I hadn't thought about and caught me off-guard. Watching his mind work like this makes me nothing be proud.

I should note, of course, that minutes (if not seconds) after these episodes, he was back acting like a capuchin throwing back triple espressos.

Quick Dispatch from the Parenting Front

Horror of horrors, we ran out of coffee here, and didn't have enough time in the schedule yesterday to drive to a reliable source, so while at the grocery store I buy a couple of those little vacuum-packed single-serving packs of whatever little occasionally acceptable "gourmet" blend they're featuring.

This morning I'm getting the coffee ready when the Princess comes over to see what I'm doing, astonished, she gasps, "You can buy it ground already!?!"

Almost brought a tear to my eye.

2x the Laundry

Somewhere between the births of Frodo and Samwise, we were given a lot of advice on how to handle the change between one kid and two. It's a compulsion for parents to pass on this kind of thing to the newbies (one I share, much to my chagrin). One of the tidbits that stuck with me (and that I've passed along, come to think of it) was to think of each additional kid as "doubling the laundry (and every other chore)." To prepare oneself for the second, or third, or fourth, bundle of joy, you needed to think of life with twice as much laundry as you had--while technically not true, the workload seemed that way. Ditto for cooking. Ditto for cleaning. And so on.

Now frankly, I don't really remember things being that way--but maybe that's because we were prepared for it. I remember an uptick in duties with Sam, not really with the Princess, and then another with Arnold--'tho given his personal entourage of medical challenges, that might be the source of a lot of it, so I'm not sure that counts.

Fast forward to a month ago, when we started the 2008-09 school year, and Arnold joined the ranks of the formally educated (not formal enough for some of his grandparents to stop carping, mind you). Wow. I could not, cannot, and probably will not believe how much more work things are this year. Yes, part of it is the larger course load the other three are taking--but it really all seems to be coming from the time needed for Arnold. And yeah, it feels like twice the laundry.

I.am.exhausted. By the time four o'clock rolls around, when (94% of the time) we're done with everything, you practically need a spatula to scrape me up. I'm pretty sure I've never looked forward to weekends as much as I have the last few.

Thankfully, Arnold's a very bright boy, and he's picked up a lot of what we're doing so far faster than the others. On the other hand--he's very demanding. Now that he's started school, he wants to be doing a lot of it--now. He doesn't complain about the workload (unlike the others), he complains if I don't give it to him quick enough. Thankfully, he is easy to satisfy--and he's becoming more understanding about me spending time working with the others--once he's done his lessons for the day, he's more than content to stop and play.

Please don't get me wrong--I'm not complaining (intentionally), nor do I have any intention of quitting. Mostly I'm surprised. I really didn't expect this, I knew this year would be harder, I just didn't realize how much so. If there was any part of me thinking I was sufficient for the task, it's been killed (and stomped on, cut into tiny bits, broiled, revived and killed again).

Knew I Should've Gone to Law School

Just didn't realize I should've done it before I became a dad...

A Canadian court has lifted a 12-year-old girl's grounding, overturning her father's punishment for disobeying his orders to stay off the internet, his lawyer said today.

The girl had taken her father to Quebec Superior Court after he refused to allow her to go on a school trip for chatting on websites he tried to block, and then posting "inappropriate" pictures of herself online using a friend's computer.

The father's lawyer Kim Beaudoin said the disciplinary measures were for the girl's "own protection" and is appealing the ruling.

If your stomach is strong enough, the rest of the story is here at The Brisbane Times' site.

As kletois said when he showed me this piece

if you are in Canada heres a helpful tip: GET OUT

Well, I'm Officially Disqualified Now...

No Father-of-the-Year Awards for me.

True Story.

Just finished watching a youtube video of a comedy bit enacted with Legos, and since this particular video featured Star Wars Legos, it grabbed the attention of the Offspring. Sadly, the clip ended up featuring a certain expletive a couple times before it was over. Didn't want to draw undo attention to it so I just played on and we all enjoyed the bit. So much so, that the Offspring wanted to watch it again.

"Uh," I stammered, "I don't think so. Pretty sure we've had more than our daily allotment of the 'F-word.'"

Samwise shoots me a confused look, "The 'F-word'?"

For crying out loud, this isn't the convo I'd intended on...I just wanted to watch a silly Lego video. "Yeah, we've talked about this before. You know, the 'F-word'..." I get a blank stare in return. "Oh, come on! Okay, like in the video, 'This isn't the who the [bleep] are you game.'"

"Oh! [Bleep]?"

"Right."

"[Bleep] [bleep]" he was getting on a roll, and clearly enjoying it.

"Allright, you're done with that word. Next time you get to say it is when you're over 18 and living on your own."

"But I can still say it in my head, though, right?"

This is the point where if it were functioning properly, my brain would simply stop my heart and I wouldn't have to deal with this anymore. Sadly, the neurons kept firing, blood kept pumping and whatnot, so we got to have a nice little conversation on appropriate words. Not a complete one, mind you, because I'd have to teach him an entire vocabulary he just doesn't posses just to get the job done properly. And yeah, I know the day is coming when he'll need to have a better grasp of it than he does now.

Hmmm, it occurs to me, when that day comes, I should have Uncle Bluewoad pitch in...am sure there's nothing like a lesson on the development of the English language to suck the fun out of cussing...

Still Psyched

Got the Bauer books this weekend--it looks even better than I remembered. Hadn't looked through the Activity book before, and am very impressed with it--think about getting it, Mist. Still have some more books to get, but am getting closer... :)

Quote of the Day

from Kelly Ling's Christian Quote of the Day email (which almost never elicits a laugh from me, I've got to note the exceptions...esp. when they're right as well as funny):

Well doth David call children "arrows"; for if they be well bred, they shoot at their parents' enemies; and if they be evil bred, they shoot at their parents.

- Henry Smith