nothing particular

WELL. of all the things I could share today...I think I will indulge in a stream of nothing important.  A wildly active stream of information -gurgling, churning, spilling over rocks.  Yet, still I think I can manage to say only non-earth shattering things.  It will be difficult perhaps.  My life is a rare fount of headline news stories.  (ummm.  humoring myself)

Elliot and I dressed for Christmas service.  Her Christmas dress is completed by boots.

Izaak's new Sony camcorder/camera/toy came in the mail today.  He's not here so I am playing with it. He got it for free.  It is a deep violet color to match the white 32g iPod he got for free last Spring.  The colors don't match.  It is the free part that matches.  Did you notice that?  People just give him expensive items when he does lame stuff like fill out surveys at expos.

When you send a 3 year old in to put on her shoes SOMETIMES they put socks all the way up and put on broken ballet shoes.  Next time I will be more clear about the knicker/ballet combo.

I learned this week that you can't effectively shush 3 year olds.  They just talk louder over the shhh sound to make doubly sure that you heard them.  I learned that lesson when Elliot pointed at a black man and said innocently enough that that wasn't her favorite color for skin.  Too dark, she thought.  It was a grocery store, he was standing about 1/2 aisle down from us.  It is the same Elliot who is very clear about not liking short hair, and blond hair. She alternates between liking Indians and not (as per the Little House books).  And, she cried once when she found out that she was an American (she just wanted to be a girl, as it turned out)

Elliot is modeling a jacket her dad wore as a little boy

Sure, it is okay to not like blonds and prefer lush long hair.  BUT how do you draw a line on what is okay without drawing a line between an imaginary us/them.  The man was black, obviously.  I don't want to teach her to ignore that fact because that is disrespectful to who he is. 

So, I faced the teachable moment where I had the chance to explain that some people are black and some have short hair and these are just adjectives but that's not who we are but that is who he is because of heritage and culture and short hair is just fashion and its okay to not like some one's fashion but you should acknowledge how people are born without judgement because while that defines us it doesn't limit or separate us (but then neither does some one's fashion choices) but it is not a big deal but why am I making this moment a big deal? It's like...In the 1 second I had to say something deep even the voice in my head was confused about what the lesson should be or why the lesson should be.  I just shrugged my shoulders and said that I thought it was a nice shade for skin but that I agreed with her about the orangyblond hair.
Her awareness of otherness is outgrowing her awareness of other's feelings. where angels fear to tread 

Henry is already 4 months old and smells inexplicably of babyness.  You know that smell?  How do they manage to smell like that?