Thursday, November 26, 2009

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Therapy

This post has been copied from RICK who said it just as well as I could.

Clinical Psychologists sometimes have their patients use puppets to act out scenes. The idea is that people will be more likely to say what they actually feel, since it's not "them" actually speaking, it's the puppets. (I know this because I watched "What About Bob?" several years ago.) They also sometimes have children draw pictures, again because they are sometimes more willing or able to draw about a traumatic event than they are to talk about it. (I know this because I regularly watch Law & Order: SVU.)

My son recently drew a picture for and about his cousin. I can only assume (based on the details) that communicating with her is somehow psychologically damaging, and that he decided to just treat himself. Click on the pic for full resolution - and make sure you read the text bubbles.



Wednesday, November 11, 2009

I Gave It My Best

When I married Rick I knew two things.

1. I loved him.
2. He was a nerd.

Seriously, Rick is one the most intelligent people I know. I often ask him to define words, talk slower and explain in four year old terms what the hell he's talking about. I knew there was always the possibility he would pass this on to our children, but I held on to the fact that surely my social skills genes could whoop his nerd genes and hard.

I knew that I was failing with Aren when he had just turned five and we were spending Christmas at my mom's house. She has a cat named Pinto and this cat has...issues. You know boys that are short tend to be a little mean - trying to prove that they can be just as "big" as the big kids? Yeah, that was Pinto. She had three legs. You heard me. Three legs. She's an outside cat and one day she just disappeared and showed up about a week later dragging her hind leg. The vet gave my mom some options and the cheapest was chosen...amputation. Point being, this cat was crazy.

I was talking with Aren one afternoon and he was telling me about his latest run in with Pinto and he said, "That cat is rather feral." I just stared at him. "What?" "That cat is rather feral." Again, staring. "What the hell does that mean?" Aren sighed and looked at me and said, "Wild mom. It means wild." I knew I was an idiot, and Aren confirmed it that night.

I had a dream that there was still hope. Aren could be a cool kid and I could help him, but this afternoon, all hopes were dashed. Aren's friend came over to play for the afternoon and the first thing he said was, "Hey, come back to my room and listen to the coolest song ever!" I was intrigued and waited to see what would come from the speakers.

Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 4th Movement (Ode to Joy for all you idiots like me).

Maybe I'll turn my efforts to Tatiana. Then again, she refuses to call orange juice "orange juice" because it's not orange, it's yellow. Maybe it's too late for her, too.