Or “more kids say the darndest things”
“No! No Gwacie! Gimme it baaack!” Ellen, the two year old protested. Struggling to get the toy, comb, condiment, whatever it was back from her four year old sister Grace at the dinner table. I don’t really remember what it was they were fighting over, because my wife Bethany and I were so excited.
“Yeah Ellie! You got your sister’s name right!!!” we cheered and clapped. If you remember from a few columns back, Ellen thinks that Garce’s name is “Hewlwn.” We’ve been working to correct this for some time.
The parenting books all say you’re supposed to reward positive behavior with such praise. We’ve applauded Ellie’s proper use of “the big girl potty” so much this way that now when we flush the toilet she claps for us, as it “Yeah Daddy (or Mommy), you wen powddy by yosewf!”
The victory didn’t last long. We decided to play a game of point-to-the-family-member-and-ask-their name. It didn’t go all that well.
Parent: Points to me, “What’s HIS name?”
Ellen: “Daddy!”
Parent: “Yeah!!! great job,” points to Bethany, “What’s HER name?”
Ellen: “Mommy!”
Parent: “Hurrah! Wonderful, you’re so smart,” points to older sister, “What’s HER name?”
Ellen: “GwHelwen!”
Parent: “Noo-o, no, sweety, her name is ‘Gracie.’ GRAY-SEE. Sigh.” In desperation, points to Ellen herself, “Okay, then what’s YOUR name?”
Ellen: “ummmmm… I ME!”
Well, at least she’s mastered the use of personal pronouns. She’s starting to repeat lots of what we say, that’s been a lot of fun. We missed many of those typical toddler benchmarks with Grace. Those of you who know her, know that she’s pretty hard to understand much of the time. At the risk of embarrassing her years from now or “airing my dirty laundry in the press,” I’d like to try to explain it to you.
Grace suffers from what is called Dysarthria. Dysarthria is a speech disorder that is due to a weakness or in-coordination of the speech muscles. Speech is slow, weak, imprecise or uncoordinated. It can affect both children and adults. "Childhood dysarthria" can often be a symptom of a disease, such as cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, or Bell’s palsy. Grace does not have any of these.
By the way none of those are forms of mental retardation. I say this because many of us might mistake them for forms of autism, Down’s syndrome or severe mental or learning disabilities. They’re muscle, nerve, or speech problems, not problems with intelligence or learning abilities.
A child once asked me if Grace was “retarded.” I held it together and didn’t cry or lash out in anger, instead I did my best to explain what Dysarthria is, but I took a long walk alone to wrestle with God when I was done.
Someone recently asked if we planned to hold Grace back from kindergarten since she was so behind. We were dumbfounded because as far as we or her teachers and doctors can tell, she’s right where she needs to be. Recognizes her name, knows her colors, counts to twenty, gets dressed by herself, starts the VCR by herself… We’re just getting stated on zipping up her coat though.
Besides, there are more forms of intelligence than math or language. Harvard Education Professor Howard Gardener teaches that there are multiple forms of intelligences.
You know how they say that if you lose one of your senses, you’re others become more acute? Like how blind people have really good hearing? Well, I think Grace has compensated for some of her weaknesses with other strengths. I know I’m biased as an Art teacher, but I think she’s got spatial intelligence ("picture smart"). Grace loves to paint and cut things out. She experiments with neutral colors and cuts out “hair-styles” and beards and hats for people.
There’s bodily-kinesthetic intelligence ("body smart"), not Grace’s area, but that would be consistent with Dysarthria since it has to do with muscle and nerve development. This would be Ellen’s area. This chick loves to jump off of high furniture and land on her feet and she loves to throw balls. Although, in Grace’s imagination, she’s come up with her own basketball league- the Dinosaur league. The boys are the “Sharp-tooths” and the girls are the “little foots.” You have to see the cartoon movie “Land before Time.”
There’s also musical intelligence ("music smart") Grace loves to sing and dance, but obviously the speech and coordination things hamper this.
There’s Intra-personal intelligence ("self smart") too many of us think we have this but don’t. And of course there’s interpersonal intelligence ("people smart"). I’d like to think Grace has this, she’s usually pretty sensitive and compassionate and a fairly decent judge of character.
In both adults and children, Dysarthria can result from head injury or stroke. As far as we can tell, Grace’s Dysarthria is a result of trauma in the womb.
She had her umbilical chord wrapped around her neck, making matters worse, she got stuck in the birth canal during labor. Unfortunately the policy of the HMO in California where she was delivered was to encourage natural child-birth as much as possible and to discourage Caesarian sections whenever possible.
Of course, we haven’t been able to convince our insurance company that this is what caused it, and we seem can’t get ample proof from the HMO to satisfy them. They’re policy is that they’ll pay to get help if it was caused by trauma, but not if it’s a “pre-existing condition/congenital condition.” But, in theory, she’ll grow out of it and eventually her speech will improve at least somewhat. And so far, she’s made friends easily and hasn’t had to endure any cruel teasing from her classmates. Of course, she might not tell us if she had, we might not understand, literally.
If you’d like to learn more about Dysarthria you can visit these websites, http://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/dysarthria.htm, http://home.ica.net/~fred/anch10-1.htm
I know this column has gotten long again but I feel bad that it’s also gotten pretty somber, so I’d like to leave you with a couple more Ellie stories. One Sunday we sat in the balcony at church, “Grammy Mawdge,” is an organist. We had the hardest time convincing Ellie that there weren’t “Monstaws” living behind the organ pipes.
Last Sunday Ellen noticed the stained glass window in the back of Jesus praying at Gesthemane.
“He sad, he cwying,” Ellie noticed.
“Yes, He is, why do you think He’s sad?” I asked her.
“He want His mommy,” she explained.
Thursday, January 29, 2004
Thursday, January 22, 2004
Looking for Stability
My own personal “9/11” is “431.” It’s nothing like “420.”
“420” is a number used by teenagers. To some it refers to 4:20 pm, the supposed average time most high school marijuana users light up. For others it represents April 20th, Adolph Hitler’s birthday. “420” reminds still others of the Columbine High School Massacre which occurred on April 20, 1999.
“431” is a time. It’s the time in the morning when I most often wake up when I’m suffering from insomnia.
At 4:31 A.M., Pacific Standard Time, on Monday, January 17, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck the densely populated San Fernando Valley, in northern Los Angeles. Thousands of aftershocks, many in the magnitude 4.0 to 5.0 range, rocked the valley during the next few weeks.
Initially they CALLED it a 6.5, then 6.7. There were rumors floating around L.A. in 1994 that it was closer to a 7.2, but that Cal Tech stuck with 6.8 because many insurance companies wouldn’t have to pay for any damages produced by any earthquake of a 7.0 magnitude or higher.
Anything above a 7 is considered an “act of God.” Believe me, if you’ve ever experienced an earthquake above a 5.0, you’d call it an “act of God.”
It was our first year out of college. We were teaching at L.A. Lutheran Jr/Sr High School. Actually, I spent the mornings at Trinity middle school in Reseda and spent my lunch hours on the freeway to get to LHS in the north Valley for the afternoon. First year teaching is hard for anyone. We lived in a tiny one-bedroom in a poor suburb called Sylmar. 600 sq feet for $660 per month.
My in-laws, Marge and Allan Neddermeyer were visiting us during the three-day MLKjr weekend.
They were supposed to fly home Monday. Saturday night there had been a small earthquake out in the ocean, off the coast from Malibu. It had been unseasonably warm, in the eighties. Natives called it “earthquake weather,” but that meant nothing to us.
We had purchased a new couch, but the Salvation Army wasn’t making pick ups on Sunday, so we had to store our old sofa (a pull out bed) in the garage. We propped it up against the wall next to our car. “Is it sturdy enough? Oh yeah, the only thing that would make that thing fall would be an earth quake.” Prophetic, we never did gat that dent out of the hood, but many or our neighbors had the top two stories of apartments bury the cars in their first floor garages!
Mom and Dad were our guests, so they got the bedroom. Doors on either side of the bathroom separated us from them in the living room. We were on an air mattress , when we made the bed we chose to sleep with our feet toward the entertainment system. That was a good decision, since the TV would’ve landed on our heads if we’d slept the other way.
At 4:31 we were rudely awakened by the quake. The air mattress felt like a pontoon raft in white water rapids shooting down the Colorado river in the Grand Canyon. Experts say that it didn’t last more than 18-30 seconds but it felt like several minutes. Bethany later teased me because I was reciting the Lord’s Prayer over and over as fast as I could. I’ve done that on really scary roller coasters too while my knuckles turn white.
Pitch black since all power was out. Battery powered car and home alarms were screaming, neighbors and their children crying and screaming, your body filled with adrenaline just like it is right after a car accident…you can see that this would be the one situation where it would not be so irrational to imagine that this was the end of the world.
Our front door was ajar, but jammed so that it wouldn’t open much wider. All of the bathroom drawers were out of the vanity. Since doors on both sides of the bathroom opened in, they were jammed and we were separated from our parents in the bedroom on the other side. The refrigerator was out of its hole and leaning against the kitchen counter. The microwave had been thrown 8 or 10 feet across the kitchen.
When we walked across the room glass crunched under our bare feet. If it weren’t covered by a layer of books that fell off the shelves, our feet would’ve surely been bloody.
When the first aftershock came, we felt like we were on a rope bridge, or in a small boat being tossed around on a stormy sea, when all four of us had gotten Marge and Allan out of the bedroom, we got out of the apartment. The pool in the center courtyard was a little more than half empty. Dozens of neighbors gathered together on the curb of the street outside the apartment complex. All of us in our underwear, most without shoes. It’s amazing how cold it is at 5 o’clock in the morning in January, even in Southern California! Some Good Samaritans with shoes and flash lights ventured back inside to retrieve blackest and robes for others. When an aftershock would hit, it felt as if the asphalt were waving like a billowing blanket on a clothesline in the breeze. It’s a surreal feeling.
Dozens of strangers sitting on the curb the curb together. Several were smoking cigarettes to try to settle their nerves even though we could all smell the natural gas escaping from severed gas lines. We heard siren after siren and helicopter after helicopter, but no police or ambulance ever stopped at our complex. That meant that this had to be huge. Was this the legendary “big one?” How big was it? What was left of L.A.? Was it WWIII? The end of the world? Some kind of disaster movie? A trailer park across the freeway from our complex blazed with fires. This and the dawn were the only lights we had.
Official reports put the death toll around 57, including a janitor who was smashed by the parking garage at the Northridge Mall. More than 1,500 people were seriously injured. 9,000 homes and businesses were still without electricity for days afterward. 20,000 without gas; and over 48,500 had little or no water.
The official reports say that nearly 12,500 structures were damaged, leaving thousands temporarily homeless. 6% of the over 66 thousand buildings inspected were severely damaged (“red tagged”) and 17% were moderately damaged (“yellow tagged”).
The strange thing about an earthquake is that it fishers out like the spider-web cracks in your windshield when it’s hit by a pebble. So our apartment was damaged beyond repair, but not destroyed, another building in our complex was damaged first, the top floors caved in on the lowest level. One neighbor had just pulled out of his garage at 4:30 on his way to National Guard duty. He said that he hit his remote for his garage door to come down, but instead the entire building came down! Yet less than 2 miles away we had a fellow teacher who had only one pitcher fall off of her kitchen counter. She was a native and wasn’t even awakened by the quake.
Our apartment was red tagged. We were homeless. Later that morning gathered clothes and photo albums into our car and somehow made it to a cousin’s house a couple of hours south. There we sat dazed watching their CNN all day, seeing lines of people buying bottled water at grocery stores and horror stories about deaths and desperate searches for survivors.
Marge and Allan stayed another week or two to help us find a new apartment and salvage the rest of our belongings. The airline graciously honored their passes. Parents and kids sometimes become friends when the kids become adults, but few people have a bond like those of us who’ve been through a crisis together.
And like a soldier, a decade later, I still struggle with post traumatic stress disorder. More stressed, irritable, depressed and sleepless.
According to Reuters News Service, at 5:26 AM on 26 December 2003, an earthquake shook a large area of Iran. The epicenter of the devastating earthquake is located a few miles South West of a city called Bam. I bet the survivors thought that it lived up to its name that morning.
Iranian scientists revised the magnitude up to 6.8, from a previous estimate of 6.3 on the Richter scale. Yeah, try over 7.0, guys. Some Iranian officials have estimated their death toll at nearly 50,000.
Los Angeles architects, engineers, and emergency service people plan and train for earthquakes with the most advanced technology in the world. In Bam, Iran, homes aren’t much different than they were in the sixth century, simple mud adobe.
Reuters reported that U.N. officials said about 40,000 people are left in Bam - most spending the bitterly cold nights in tents - out of an original population of 103,000. The rest are thought to be either dead, missing, in hospital or had gotten the hell away from there. I can’t blame them, I left L.A. for Iowa looking for more stable ground.
“420” is a number used by teenagers. To some it refers to 4:20 pm, the supposed average time most high school marijuana users light up. For others it represents April 20th, Adolph Hitler’s birthday. “420” reminds still others of the Columbine High School Massacre which occurred on April 20, 1999.
“431” is a time. It’s the time in the morning when I most often wake up when I’m suffering from insomnia.
At 4:31 A.M., Pacific Standard Time, on Monday, January 17, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck the densely populated San Fernando Valley, in northern Los Angeles. Thousands of aftershocks, many in the magnitude 4.0 to 5.0 range, rocked the valley during the next few weeks.
Initially they CALLED it a 6.5, then 6.7. There were rumors floating around L.A. in 1994 that it was closer to a 7.2, but that Cal Tech stuck with 6.8 because many insurance companies wouldn’t have to pay for any damages produced by any earthquake of a 7.0 magnitude or higher.
Anything above a 7 is considered an “act of God.” Believe me, if you’ve ever experienced an earthquake above a 5.0, you’d call it an “act of God.”
It was our first year out of college. We were teaching at L.A. Lutheran Jr/Sr High School. Actually, I spent the mornings at Trinity middle school in Reseda and spent my lunch hours on the freeway to get to LHS in the north Valley for the afternoon. First year teaching is hard for anyone. We lived in a tiny one-bedroom in a poor suburb called Sylmar. 600 sq feet for $660 per month.
My in-laws, Marge and Allan Neddermeyer were visiting us during the three-day MLKjr weekend.
They were supposed to fly home Monday. Saturday night there had been a small earthquake out in the ocean, off the coast from Malibu. It had been unseasonably warm, in the eighties. Natives called it “earthquake weather,” but that meant nothing to us.
We had purchased a new couch, but the Salvation Army wasn’t making pick ups on Sunday, so we had to store our old sofa (a pull out bed) in the garage. We propped it up against the wall next to our car. “Is it sturdy enough? Oh yeah, the only thing that would make that thing fall would be an earth quake.” Prophetic, we never did gat that dent out of the hood, but many or our neighbors had the top two stories of apartments bury the cars in their first floor garages!
Mom and Dad were our guests, so they got the bedroom. Doors on either side of the bathroom separated us from them in the living room. We were on an air mattress , when we made the bed we chose to sleep with our feet toward the entertainment system. That was a good decision, since the TV would’ve landed on our heads if we’d slept the other way.
At 4:31 we were rudely awakened by the quake. The air mattress felt like a pontoon raft in white water rapids shooting down the Colorado river in the Grand Canyon. Experts say that it didn’t last more than 18-30 seconds but it felt like several minutes. Bethany later teased me because I was reciting the Lord’s Prayer over and over as fast as I could. I’ve done that on really scary roller coasters too while my knuckles turn white.
Pitch black since all power was out. Battery powered car and home alarms were screaming, neighbors and their children crying and screaming, your body filled with adrenaline just like it is right after a car accident…you can see that this would be the one situation where it would not be so irrational to imagine that this was the end of the world.
Our front door was ajar, but jammed so that it wouldn’t open much wider. All of the bathroom drawers were out of the vanity. Since doors on both sides of the bathroom opened in, they were jammed and we were separated from our parents in the bedroom on the other side. The refrigerator was out of its hole and leaning against the kitchen counter. The microwave had been thrown 8 or 10 feet across the kitchen.
When we walked across the room glass crunched under our bare feet. If it weren’t covered by a layer of books that fell off the shelves, our feet would’ve surely been bloody.
When the first aftershock came, we felt like we were on a rope bridge, or in a small boat being tossed around on a stormy sea, when all four of us had gotten Marge and Allan out of the bedroom, we got out of the apartment. The pool in the center courtyard was a little more than half empty. Dozens of neighbors gathered together on the curb of the street outside the apartment complex. All of us in our underwear, most without shoes. It’s amazing how cold it is at 5 o’clock in the morning in January, even in Southern California! Some Good Samaritans with shoes and flash lights ventured back inside to retrieve blackest and robes for others. When an aftershock would hit, it felt as if the asphalt were waving like a billowing blanket on a clothesline in the breeze. It’s a surreal feeling.
Dozens of strangers sitting on the curb the curb together. Several were smoking cigarettes to try to settle their nerves even though we could all smell the natural gas escaping from severed gas lines. We heard siren after siren and helicopter after helicopter, but no police or ambulance ever stopped at our complex. That meant that this had to be huge. Was this the legendary “big one?” How big was it? What was left of L.A.? Was it WWIII? The end of the world? Some kind of disaster movie? A trailer park across the freeway from our complex blazed with fires. This and the dawn were the only lights we had.
Official reports put the death toll around 57, including a janitor who was smashed by the parking garage at the Northridge Mall. More than 1,500 people were seriously injured. 9,000 homes and businesses were still without electricity for days afterward. 20,000 without gas; and over 48,500 had little or no water.
The official reports say that nearly 12,500 structures were damaged, leaving thousands temporarily homeless. 6% of the over 66 thousand buildings inspected were severely damaged (“red tagged”) and 17% were moderately damaged (“yellow tagged”).
The strange thing about an earthquake is that it fishers out like the spider-web cracks in your windshield when it’s hit by a pebble. So our apartment was damaged beyond repair, but not destroyed, another building in our complex was damaged first, the top floors caved in on the lowest level. One neighbor had just pulled out of his garage at 4:30 on his way to National Guard duty. He said that he hit his remote for his garage door to come down, but instead the entire building came down! Yet less than 2 miles away we had a fellow teacher who had only one pitcher fall off of her kitchen counter. She was a native and wasn’t even awakened by the quake.
Our apartment was red tagged. We were homeless. Later that morning gathered clothes and photo albums into our car and somehow made it to a cousin’s house a couple of hours south. There we sat dazed watching their CNN all day, seeing lines of people buying bottled water at grocery stores and horror stories about deaths and desperate searches for survivors.
Marge and Allan stayed another week or two to help us find a new apartment and salvage the rest of our belongings. The airline graciously honored their passes. Parents and kids sometimes become friends when the kids become adults, but few people have a bond like those of us who’ve been through a crisis together.
And like a soldier, a decade later, I still struggle with post traumatic stress disorder. More stressed, irritable, depressed and sleepless.
According to Reuters News Service, at 5:26 AM on 26 December 2003, an earthquake shook a large area of Iran. The epicenter of the devastating earthquake is located a few miles South West of a city called Bam. I bet the survivors thought that it lived up to its name that morning.
Iranian scientists revised the magnitude up to 6.8, from a previous estimate of 6.3 on the Richter scale. Yeah, try over 7.0, guys. Some Iranian officials have estimated their death toll at nearly 50,000.
Los Angeles architects, engineers, and emergency service people plan and train for earthquakes with the most advanced technology in the world. In Bam, Iran, homes aren’t much different than they were in the sixth century, simple mud adobe.
Reuters reported that U.N. officials said about 40,000 people are left in Bam - most spending the bitterly cold nights in tents - out of an original population of 103,000. The rest are thought to be either dead, missing, in hospital or had gotten the hell away from there. I can’t blame them, I left L.A. for Iowa looking for more stable ground.
Thursday, January 15, 2004
Kids say the darnedest things
I thought Gracie used to say funny things. Other kids are constantly saying “Why?” When she was two and we’d be out in public she’d keep pointing to people and asking “Who’s that guy? Who’s ‘dat guy?”
Just before Christmas I took her to the doctor in Denison for an awful cough. It was actually a funny story to begin with. The earliest they could see her was “sometime after three.” I took my last hour class off so that I could leave school early. I called the babysitter to let her know I’d be picking Grace up around 2:30.
“Oh, that’s too bad,” said Judy Bockeman, Gracie’s babysitter, “Santa was going to come about 2:45.”
“Oh, well, I hate to be a Grinch, but Grace’s seen him several times this season already, that’s just the way it’s gotta be,” I sighed.
No problem, the Dunlap highway is no L.A. freeway- it has no lights and almost no traffic. Except that this day some farmer was moving at least 30 head of cattle along the highway. A couple of pick-ups, a couple of four-runners, at a cow’s pace.
So she got to see Santa because I didn’t get there till ten after three. Well, we got to the doctors’ by 3:40 and didn’t get in till 4:30, but that’s the way doctor appointments go, right?
My point was, I had almost a half hour alone in the van with one of my kids, so I tried my best to spark up a conversation. I asked her about Santa.
She told me he drives a blue pick-up. “What about his sleigh?” I asked her, “Does he pull the sleigh with the pick-up or do the reindeer pull the pick-up?”
“No, silly!” she protested, “That’s only on Christmas Eve!”
“What is, the pick-up?” I asked.
“No, da sleigh is only on Christmas Eve, da rest of da time he drives a bwoo pick-up!” she explained.
Evidently Santa only rides the fire truck to the Commercial club’s Santa Claus Night.
Anyway, I used to think that Gracie said funny things, like when she scolds our cat, she calls him “King Neddermeyer!” Apparently he doesn’t have a middle name or I’m sure she’d use it too.
I used to think that Gracie said funny things, but now her little sister Ellie has become a chatterbox.
One night she was dipping her green beans in her catsup as if they were French fries. “Mmmmm, yum!” she said.
“Is that good?” I asked.
She paused, looked at the green bean in her hand and wrinkled up her little brow, finally she protested-
“Dat not a ‘good,’ dat’s a BEAN!”
I understand why she calls her Grandma Marge “Mawdgie.” I THINK I can understand that she calls her Great-Grandma Laura “Mawdgie,” I just hope she doesn’t call my Mom that the next time she sees her.
What I don’t get is why she calls Grace “Helwen.”
“No, no honey,” we try to explain to her “YOUR name is ‘Ellen,’ her name is ‘Gracie,’ can you say ‘Gracie?’”
“Gwacie,” she’ll say.
“Good, that’s good, now what’s HER name?” we’ll ask and point to Grace.
“Helwen!”
It’s crazy, I’ll say “Ellen, please go get your sister ‘Grace,’ supper’s ready.” and invariably, she’ll start calling “HELWEN! Suppa’s weady!...Where’s Helwen?” I just don’t get it.
The cutest story my cheerleaders love to hear me tell was when I was cleaning the kitchen the night before her birthday party.
“Da-aad, what doing?” asked Ellie.
“I’m cleaning” I answered.
“Why?”
“Uh, because we want the house to look nice,” I said.
“Why?” she pursued further.
“Because we’re going to have people over,” I continued.
“Why?”
“Because it’s your birthday! We’re having a party, you’re going to be TWO!” I said, hoping to see her get excited.
In stead she paused and crunched up her little brow for almost half a minute, finally she waved her hand at me, frowned and protested- “No, YOU’RE TWO!”
Just before Christmas I took her to the doctor in Denison for an awful cough. It was actually a funny story to begin with. The earliest they could see her was “sometime after three.” I took my last hour class off so that I could leave school early. I called the babysitter to let her know I’d be picking Grace up around 2:30.
“Oh, that’s too bad,” said Judy Bockeman, Gracie’s babysitter, “Santa was going to come about 2:45.”
“Oh, well, I hate to be a Grinch, but Grace’s seen him several times this season already, that’s just the way it’s gotta be,” I sighed.
No problem, the Dunlap highway is no L.A. freeway- it has no lights and almost no traffic. Except that this day some farmer was moving at least 30 head of cattle along the highway. A couple of pick-ups, a couple of four-runners, at a cow’s pace.
So she got to see Santa because I didn’t get there till ten after three. Well, we got to the doctors’ by 3:40 and didn’t get in till 4:30, but that’s the way doctor appointments go, right?
My point was, I had almost a half hour alone in the van with one of my kids, so I tried my best to spark up a conversation. I asked her about Santa.
She told me he drives a blue pick-up. “What about his sleigh?” I asked her, “Does he pull the sleigh with the pick-up or do the reindeer pull the pick-up?”
“No, silly!” she protested, “That’s only on Christmas Eve!”
“What is, the pick-up?” I asked.
“No, da sleigh is only on Christmas Eve, da rest of da time he drives a bwoo pick-up!” she explained.
Evidently Santa only rides the fire truck to the Commercial club’s Santa Claus Night.
Anyway, I used to think that Gracie said funny things, like when she scolds our cat, she calls him “King Neddermeyer!” Apparently he doesn’t have a middle name or I’m sure she’d use it too.
I used to think that Gracie said funny things, but now her little sister Ellie has become a chatterbox.
One night she was dipping her green beans in her catsup as if they were French fries. “Mmmmm, yum!” she said.
“Is that good?” I asked.
She paused, looked at the green bean in her hand and wrinkled up her little brow, finally she protested-
“Dat not a ‘good,’ dat’s a BEAN!”
I understand why she calls her Grandma Marge “Mawdgie.” I THINK I can understand that she calls her Great-Grandma Laura “Mawdgie,” I just hope she doesn’t call my Mom that the next time she sees her.
What I don’t get is why she calls Grace “Helwen.”
“No, no honey,” we try to explain to her “YOUR name is ‘Ellen,’ her name is ‘Gracie,’ can you say ‘Gracie?’”
“Gwacie,” she’ll say.
“Good, that’s good, now what’s HER name?” we’ll ask and point to Grace.
“Helwen!”
It’s crazy, I’ll say “Ellen, please go get your sister ‘Grace,’ supper’s ready.” and invariably, she’ll start calling “HELWEN! Suppa’s weady!...Where’s Helwen?” I just don’t get it.
The cutest story my cheerleaders love to hear me tell was when I was cleaning the kitchen the night before her birthday party.
“Da-aad, what doing?” asked Ellie.
“I’m cleaning” I answered.
“Why?”
“Uh, because we want the house to look nice,” I said.
“Why?” she pursued further.
“Because we’re going to have people over,” I continued.
“Why?”
“Because it’s your birthday! We’re having a party, you’re going to be TWO!” I said, hoping to see her get excited.
In stead she paused and crunched up her little brow for almost half a minute, finally she waved her hand at me, frowned and protested- “No, YOU’RE TWO!”
Thursday, January 08, 2004
A Caucus Primer
Iowa’s “First in the Nation Caucuses” are just a couple of weeks away, on January 19th. As a public service, here’s my personal guide to the 2 or 3 major parties and their candidates:
Who knows if or when the Reform Party will hold a national convention. They basically broke apart at their 1999 convention in Long Beach, California. It looks like party activist and businessman Ted Weill is the frontrunner for the party's 2004 Presidential nomination. Weill is both the Mississippi Reform Party Chairman and a Reform Party National Committeeman. I know this is prejudiced on my part, but I for one am terrified of fringe party candidates from Mississippi…and Alabama…and South Carolina. See where I’m going with this?
Weill opposes giving money to other countries, hopes to lower the cost of gas and create jobs by pursuing alternative fuels. He thinks prisoners should be used for slave labor, that all prescriptions should be made available for no more than $5 and wants to offer free college internet classes and free adoptions. Exciting.
The Green Party National Convention is the earliest one. It will be in Milwaukee, WI June 23-28, 2004. Beer and cheese. Sounds like a party.
Their most likely candidate, of course is consumer advocate, liberal activist and Harvard-educated attorney, this will be Ralph Nader’s fourth Presidential. But there’s also David Cobb, a lawyer who’s the General Counsel for the Green Party of the United States (GP-US) and helped to found the Green Party of Texas.
What can I tell you? I have a friend who used to be a hard core Republican who decided that true democratic reform, consumer rights and the environment were more important to him than voting for people who actually get elected.
The Democratic National Convention will be July 26-29 in Boston Massatchusetts. Staunch Democratic country. Expect to see lots of Kennedys, with the exception perhaps of California’s First Lady Maria Schriver-Shwarzenagger.
Former Ambassador to New Zealand Carol Moseley Braun is a former Senator from Illinois. Her big issues are funding for public schools and, as you might guess, diversity. She knows she’s not going to get the nomination, but believes her voice is important to the race. I can see her getting a Cabinet job if a Democrat is elected.
Retired General Wesley Clark is the former commander of NATO durring Kosovo. He’s a moderate, the darling of the fiscally conservative Democratic Leadership Conference. But I don’t know what else he stands for, but I like that he’s one of only 2 candidates to say President Bush went to war with Iraq too soon and without any advanced plans for getting us out.
Right now it looks like the frontrunner is New Hampshire Governor Howard Dean. I’ve liked him all along. I keep telling people he reminds me of a Democratic John McCain. Just a little edge, just a dash of indignation. He opposed the war, he opposes monster deficits. He makes the Party leadership nervous enough that moderate swing voters will think he’s his own man. All he has to do is debate Bush and he’s got a chance. He much more relaxed and natural than Gore was. I think he stands a chance.
High school girls like North Carolina Senator John Edwards. Young, handsome, innovative ideas. I can see him as an ideal pick for Dean’s running mate. If Dean wins the nomination, he’s going to need a moderate Southerner to balance the ticket and General Clark may not be Southern enough, plus Clark comes off as too intelectual.Conservatives and swing moderates seem to be afraid of brains, especially articulate ones- wittness our current President.
I actually perferred Missouri Congressman Dick Gephardt over Gore, but I voted for New Jersy Senator Bill Bradley in the 2000 Primary. I even perferred Gephardt over Clinton, but in 1988 I voted for Illinois Senator Paul Simon. He recently passed away after heart surgery. He was Lutheran. What can I say, I like intelligence. Watching Gephardt this time around, I saw too much artificial anger, like he was trying to act like Gore was trying to act in the last election. He used to be about labor, farming, and health care, now he looks like he’s just about running for President one last time.
I like Massatchusetts Senator John Kerry. I’d rather vote for Nebraska Senator Bob Kerry. They’re both veterans, they’re both smart and articulate. There is the married to the Heintz Katsup heiress thing, and the Massatchusetts thing. Republican fodder.
Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich? Two words, Michael Dukakis. Only divorced.
Conecticut Senator Joe Lieberman may be upset that former Vice President Gore didn’t give him his endorsement, but that didn’t mean he had to become a Republican. Supporting our troops doesn’t mean you have to have supported the President’s decision to go to war, even Republicans know that. You don’t try appealing to the swing voters in the primaries, you wait until you’ve got the nomination, but Lieberman doesn’t seem to get that.
Who does Reverend Al Sharpton think he is? Lets face it, even Liberal Democrats think this guy makes Jesse Jackson look as religiously legitimate as Billy Graham and as politically conservative as Jerry Fawell. It’s not that he’s radical, its not that he’s black, it’s that he’s a wacko.
The Republican National Convention will be in New York City, August 30-Sept 6. At first, it was going to be a cruise on the Hudson river. I can’t blame Republicans for not wanting to actually be in the city itself. Democrats out number them 5 to 1 there. But Republican Mayor Blooburg talked them into bringing their millions of dollars into Manhattan it’s self. My theory is that it’s one big photo-op. The GOP wants to capitalize on 9/11, but I’m pretty cynical and just a little conspiracy minded. I blame that on Watergate.
What do I think of President Goerge W. Bush? Massive deficits, failed foreign policy, failed education policy, Massive tax cuts to billionares at the expense of our children’s future, failed economic policy, lied to the American people to make us think that Saddam Hussein and Iraq had something to do with Al Queda, Bin Laden or 9/11 so that he could unilaterally and “pre-emptively” invade a tiny country so that his and his Vice President’s friends could make money off the oil, not smart, not articulate.
Other than that, he’s a great guy. Nice, personable, down to earth, faith and family are important. Did I mention that he did not come to office by winning the popular election of the majority of Americans? What more do you want?
I wanted at least one other Republican to challenge him for his party’s nomination. I wanted Arizona Republican John McCain or Bill Bradley, or one of them as President and the other as Vice President. But, you can’t have it all.
Who knows if or when the Reform Party will hold a national convention. They basically broke apart at their 1999 convention in Long Beach, California. It looks like party activist and businessman Ted Weill is the frontrunner for the party's 2004 Presidential nomination. Weill is both the Mississippi Reform Party Chairman and a Reform Party National Committeeman. I know this is prejudiced on my part, but I for one am terrified of fringe party candidates from Mississippi…and Alabama…and South Carolina. See where I’m going with this?
Weill opposes giving money to other countries, hopes to lower the cost of gas and create jobs by pursuing alternative fuels. He thinks prisoners should be used for slave labor, that all prescriptions should be made available for no more than $5 and wants to offer free college internet classes and free adoptions. Exciting.
The Green Party National Convention is the earliest one. It will be in Milwaukee, WI June 23-28, 2004. Beer and cheese. Sounds like a party.
Their most likely candidate, of course is consumer advocate, liberal activist and Harvard-educated attorney, this will be Ralph Nader’s fourth Presidential. But there’s also David Cobb, a lawyer who’s the General Counsel for the Green Party of the United States (GP-US) and helped to found the Green Party of Texas.
What can I tell you? I have a friend who used to be a hard core Republican who decided that true democratic reform, consumer rights and the environment were more important to him than voting for people who actually get elected.
The Democratic National Convention will be July 26-29 in Boston Massatchusetts. Staunch Democratic country. Expect to see lots of Kennedys, with the exception perhaps of California’s First Lady Maria Schriver-Shwarzenagger.
Former Ambassador to New Zealand Carol Moseley Braun is a former Senator from Illinois. Her big issues are funding for public schools and, as you might guess, diversity. She knows she’s not going to get the nomination, but believes her voice is important to the race. I can see her getting a Cabinet job if a Democrat is elected.
Retired General Wesley Clark is the former commander of NATO durring Kosovo. He’s a moderate, the darling of the fiscally conservative Democratic Leadership Conference. But I don’t know what else he stands for, but I like that he’s one of only 2 candidates to say President Bush went to war with Iraq too soon and without any advanced plans for getting us out.
Right now it looks like the frontrunner is New Hampshire Governor Howard Dean. I’ve liked him all along. I keep telling people he reminds me of a Democratic John McCain. Just a little edge, just a dash of indignation. He opposed the war, he opposes monster deficits. He makes the Party leadership nervous enough that moderate swing voters will think he’s his own man. All he has to do is debate Bush and he’s got a chance. He much more relaxed and natural than Gore was. I think he stands a chance.
High school girls like North Carolina Senator John Edwards. Young, handsome, innovative ideas. I can see him as an ideal pick for Dean’s running mate. If Dean wins the nomination, he’s going to need a moderate Southerner to balance the ticket and General Clark may not be Southern enough, plus Clark comes off as too intelectual.Conservatives and swing moderates seem to be afraid of brains, especially articulate ones- wittness our current President.
I actually perferred Missouri Congressman Dick Gephardt over Gore, but I voted for New Jersy Senator Bill Bradley in the 2000 Primary. I even perferred Gephardt over Clinton, but in 1988 I voted for Illinois Senator Paul Simon. He recently passed away after heart surgery. He was Lutheran. What can I say, I like intelligence. Watching Gephardt this time around, I saw too much artificial anger, like he was trying to act like Gore was trying to act in the last election. He used to be about labor, farming, and health care, now he looks like he’s just about running for President one last time.
I like Massatchusetts Senator John Kerry. I’d rather vote for Nebraska Senator Bob Kerry. They’re both veterans, they’re both smart and articulate. There is the married to the Heintz Katsup heiress thing, and the Massatchusetts thing. Republican fodder.
Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich? Two words, Michael Dukakis. Only divorced.
Conecticut Senator Joe Lieberman may be upset that former Vice President Gore didn’t give him his endorsement, but that didn’t mean he had to become a Republican. Supporting our troops doesn’t mean you have to have supported the President’s decision to go to war, even Republicans know that. You don’t try appealing to the swing voters in the primaries, you wait until you’ve got the nomination, but Lieberman doesn’t seem to get that.
Who does Reverend Al Sharpton think he is? Lets face it, even Liberal Democrats think this guy makes Jesse Jackson look as religiously legitimate as Billy Graham and as politically conservative as Jerry Fawell. It’s not that he’s radical, its not that he’s black, it’s that he’s a wacko.
The Republican National Convention will be in New York City, August 30-Sept 6. At first, it was going to be a cruise on the Hudson river. I can’t blame Republicans for not wanting to actually be in the city itself. Democrats out number them 5 to 1 there. But Republican Mayor Blooburg talked them into bringing their millions of dollars into Manhattan it’s self. My theory is that it’s one big photo-op. The GOP wants to capitalize on 9/11, but I’m pretty cynical and just a little conspiracy minded. I blame that on Watergate.
What do I think of President Goerge W. Bush? Massive deficits, failed foreign policy, failed education policy, Massive tax cuts to billionares at the expense of our children’s future, failed economic policy, lied to the American people to make us think that Saddam Hussein and Iraq had something to do with Al Queda, Bin Laden or 9/11 so that he could unilaterally and “pre-emptively” invade a tiny country so that his and his Vice President’s friends could make money off the oil, not smart, not articulate.
Other than that, he’s a great guy. Nice, personable, down to earth, faith and family are important. Did I mention that he did not come to office by winning the popular election of the majority of Americans? What more do you want?
I wanted at least one other Republican to challenge him for his party’s nomination. I wanted Arizona Republican John McCain or Bill Bradley, or one of them as President and the other as Vice President. But, you can’t have it all.
Thursday, January 01, 2004
Top 10 Resolutions; Or ‘Blame it on Baghdad’
Did you know that New Years was created by the Babylonians over four thousand years ago? So if you hate making New Year’s resolutions, it’s just one more thing to blame on Baghdad.
I was curious what the most popular New Year’s resolutions in America were. So I ran a Google search on the internet. You’d think that the Gallup Poll people might have a list, wouldn’t you? Nope. USA Today? No. CNN? Time? Well, they had a Year in Photos, but nothing about resolutions. Finally “About.com” had something, but it was from their “Guide to Philadelphia” section, so it’s really not a necessarily representative of all of us.
By the way, you have to be really careful when you make a Google search. I tried typing in “Year-in-review,” whoa Nelly, you would not believe the websites Google turned up when I accidentally typed “Rear-in-review.”
Be that as it may, her is my brief commentary on About.com’s top 10 New Year’s Resolutions
1) Spend More Time with Family & Friends
According to About.com, General Nutrition Centers took a poll that says that 59% of Americans promise to spend more time with family and friends this year. Are most of GNC’s customers spending too much time at work? Or at the Gym maybe? I’d like to spend more time with my family and friends, but for some reason all the High School Athletic Directors and Basketball coaches think that kids have to play two or three games a week December through March. I don’t know why that is. Schools only play one football game a week all fall. Don’t get me wrong, Sports are good for kids, teach life lessons, build character, etc.
2) Fit in Fitness
Everybody knows that exercise is associated with all kinds of health benefits. “Reduces the risk of cancer… increases longevity, helps achieve & maintain weight loss, enhances mood, lowers blood pressure, and even improves arthritis etc. etc. blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda.” Okay, About.com didn’t use all the “blahs” and “yaddas.” I know all this stuff. We all know all this stuff, but that doesn’t make me like it, or get me out of bed at 4:30 in the morning to do it. Especially when I don’t get home till 11:30 after the basketball game. And it’s going to be 18˚ and icy or muddy at 4:30 between now and June.
3) Tame the Bulge
About.com says that ”Fifty-five percent of adults in America are overweight” Yea!!! That means that 55% of Americans don’t look down their noses at me for being such a fat slob! By the way, have you noticed a trend here? Is it About.com, or GNC? No, I think it’s pretty natural. In fact, I think this is #1 on most of our lists of resolutions. It has been on mine for say the last 25 years of so. I was doing pretty good from June to September, but I pretty much fell off the wagon in October.
4) Quit Smoking
They say this one takes at least two years to achieve. Supposedly, cigarettes are even more addictive than heroine. I smoked a few cigars back in college. I fancied my self a connoisseur. As if a 19 year old can be a connoisseur. Anyway, being a tobacco-snob is like being an imported-beer-snob, it’s too expensive to become too habit forming. The real thing that helped me quit was Bethany. She was my fiancé at the time. She offered to buy me a “Goya de Nicuragua” (my favorite stogie), but she told me that there was no way she’d be kissin’ me for several days. For the rest of you, I’d like to recommend http://www.quitnet.com.
5) Enjoy Life More
Forced to spend more time with your family, having to eat less, get up early to exercise, and no more cigars? What kind of a life does About.com want me to lead? Next they’ll be telling me I can’t drink anymore either.
Seriously though, getting more sleep, being healthier and more fit, losing weight, spending more time with my family and maybe some St. John’s Wort will help.
6) Quit Drinking
Remember, I’ve got that Imported-Beer-Snob thing going. I like Miller Lite and I’ll tolerate Bud Light, but my alcohol is pretty few and far between. Although, my friends on the Atkin’s diet tell me that it’s a carbohydrate/weight loss issue too. That’s an idea that has merit.
7) Get Out of Debt
OW, ow, ow. This might take more than a year. It also might require that I start buying lottery tickets, unfortunately I can’t afford the dollar a week, even with all the money I save on cigarettes and beer. Plus there’s all that St. John’s Wort I’m buying, and the membership at the gym.
8) Learn Something New
Last year I planned on learning how to play the guitar. I even ran out and bought “Guitar for Dummies.” This year I plan on watching the Discovery Channel a lot, that way I can learn useful stuff like how to make a Chevy Suburban into a mobile Las Vegas wedding chapel.
9) Help Others
Was it Ben Franklin who said “God helps those who help themselves?” I don’t know. It may be selfish, but it’s hard to take care # 9 when you can’t even help yourself enough to take care of # 1 through 8.
10) Get Organized
Yeah right. I started reading this book on Adult Attention Deficit Disorder once, but I just didn’t have the patience to finish it.
The only real resolution I made this year was to write shorter columns, but it looks like I’ll have to try again next year.
I was curious what the most popular New Year’s resolutions in America were. So I ran a Google search on the internet. You’d think that the Gallup Poll people might have a list, wouldn’t you? Nope. USA Today? No. CNN? Time? Well, they had a Year in Photos, but nothing about resolutions. Finally “About.com” had something, but it was from their “Guide to Philadelphia” section, so it’s really not a necessarily representative of all of us.
By the way, you have to be really careful when you make a Google search. I tried typing in “Year-in-review,” whoa Nelly, you would not believe the websites Google turned up when I accidentally typed “Rear-in-review.”
Be that as it may, her is my brief commentary on About.com’s top 10 New Year’s Resolutions
1) Spend More Time with Family & Friends
According to About.com, General Nutrition Centers took a poll that says that 59% of Americans promise to spend more time with family and friends this year. Are most of GNC’s customers spending too much time at work? Or at the Gym maybe? I’d like to spend more time with my family and friends, but for some reason all the High School Athletic Directors and Basketball coaches think that kids have to play two or three games a week December through March. I don’t know why that is. Schools only play one football game a week all fall. Don’t get me wrong, Sports are good for kids, teach life lessons, build character, etc.
2) Fit in Fitness
Everybody knows that exercise is associated with all kinds of health benefits. “Reduces the risk of cancer… increases longevity, helps achieve & maintain weight loss, enhances mood, lowers blood pressure, and even improves arthritis etc. etc. blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda.” Okay, About.com didn’t use all the “blahs” and “yaddas.” I know all this stuff. We all know all this stuff, but that doesn’t make me like it, or get me out of bed at 4:30 in the morning to do it. Especially when I don’t get home till 11:30 after the basketball game. And it’s going to be 18˚ and icy or muddy at 4:30 between now and June.
3) Tame the Bulge
About.com says that ”Fifty-five percent of adults in America are overweight” Yea!!! That means that 55% of Americans don’t look down their noses at me for being such a fat slob! By the way, have you noticed a trend here? Is it About.com, or GNC? No, I think it’s pretty natural. In fact, I think this is #1 on most of our lists of resolutions. It has been on mine for say the last 25 years of so. I was doing pretty good from June to September, but I pretty much fell off the wagon in October.
4) Quit Smoking
They say this one takes at least two years to achieve. Supposedly, cigarettes are even more addictive than heroine. I smoked a few cigars back in college. I fancied my self a connoisseur. As if a 19 year old can be a connoisseur. Anyway, being a tobacco-snob is like being an imported-beer-snob, it’s too expensive to become too habit forming. The real thing that helped me quit was Bethany. She was my fiancé at the time. She offered to buy me a “Goya de Nicuragua” (my favorite stogie), but she told me that there was no way she’d be kissin’ me for several days. For the rest of you, I’d like to recommend http://www.quitnet.com.
5) Enjoy Life More
Forced to spend more time with your family, having to eat less, get up early to exercise, and no more cigars? What kind of a life does About.com want me to lead? Next they’ll be telling me I can’t drink anymore either.
Seriously though, getting more sleep, being healthier and more fit, losing weight, spending more time with my family and maybe some St. John’s Wort will help.
6) Quit Drinking
Remember, I’ve got that Imported-Beer-Snob thing going. I like Miller Lite and I’ll tolerate Bud Light, but my alcohol is pretty few and far between. Although, my friends on the Atkin’s diet tell me that it’s a carbohydrate/weight loss issue too. That’s an idea that has merit.
7) Get Out of Debt
OW, ow, ow. This might take more than a year. It also might require that I start buying lottery tickets, unfortunately I can’t afford the dollar a week, even with all the money I save on cigarettes and beer. Plus there’s all that St. John’s Wort I’m buying, and the membership at the gym.
8) Learn Something New
Last year I planned on learning how to play the guitar. I even ran out and bought “Guitar for Dummies.” This year I plan on watching the Discovery Channel a lot, that way I can learn useful stuff like how to make a Chevy Suburban into a mobile Las Vegas wedding chapel.
9) Help Others
Was it Ben Franklin who said “God helps those who help themselves?” I don’t know. It may be selfish, but it’s hard to take care # 9 when you can’t even help yourself enough to take care of # 1 through 8.
10) Get Organized
Yeah right. I started reading this book on Adult Attention Deficit Disorder once, but I just didn’t have the patience to finish it.
The only real resolution I made this year was to write shorter columns, but it looks like I’ll have to try again next year.
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