Sozlet stories

:-)

One of the best moments of the Chicago trip:

We got to the hotel (the Hyatt Regency Chicago, on E. Wacker, right on the river) VERY late on Friday night. So sleepy sozlet walked in to the lobby of the hotel in her pink puffy down jacket, pulling her little suitcase on wheels with one hand, and clutching Beary the teddybear with the other. We go through the revolving door and see this:



(In the atrium part of this photo:)



With music blasting and and crawling with nightclub types dressed to the nines. Her eyes got bigger, and bigger, and bigger yet -- COMPLETELY enthralled. That's the kind of life she always figured she should have (she was disappointed when we told her we had to get to her room and go to bed rather than letting her go dance -- we went back the next night but it wasn't late enough.)

That expression, though, I'll always remember it -- little tiny girl clutching her teddy bear taking little tiny steps and drinking in the magic of big-city life with all of her senses...

Soz--

You might remind her that everything in Naperville looks very different with snow on the ground.

Just saw a riddle, answer was supposed to be "because nothing gets under their skin." Asked sozlet, "Why are skeletons always so calm?" She said brightly, "because they're dead?" (I don't know if anyone else in the universe would find this funny, but I cracked up.)

The other day it was yucky outside, and she said, "It's not raining, it's not snowing, it's a mixture..." I said, "It's called sleet." She repeated "Sleet?" then mused half under her breath, "there are a lot of funny words in my future."

God, she's brilliant, isn't she?

Thats so incredibly sad ... there's really no premium on history or tradition there, huh? Oh my ... <sighs>

(Mind you, I'm well aware that my home country, where you are obliged to request local government permission for every, say, bay window or attic you'd want to add to your house, would seem oppressive to many Americans, but still ...)

I cant stand things disappearing.

Ooooh that girl is gonna be a hit of a woman

What can I say? When she has a point, she has a point.

More Jones stuff:

We've settled into a routine where E.G. reads sozlet her first book or two of the night while I read the New Yorker, then I read the next few books and actually put her to bed. She delights in stealing the New Yorker from me ("I'm almost done! Just let me read this one more ARGH!") as an indication that she and E.G. are finished.

So last night, I was looking for the New Yorker and couldn't find it. She was the last one who had it, so I asked her. She said she didn't know. I said THINK! She got a funny expression, and when I looked at her quizzically said "I'm turning my eyes around to look at my brain... see, Jones is always like videotaping everything that happens, and I can ... download it and see what happened... just a minute..." She squinted a bit more and then popped up with an "a-ha!", ran off, and came back with the New Yorker.

These stories always make me smile. You have quite a daughter!

Good ole Jonesy.

We went to the mall a few days ago and she got a small bag of jelly beans while we were there. I let her hold them and eat them on the way home, but I warned her that I wanted her to go slowly and I would NOT be amused if the bag was empty when we got home.

So we arrived, I turned to see what the jelly bean situation was and fully expected to see an empty bag and a guilty sozlet. But no -- she'd only had maybe 10, total, it was almost the same level it had been before. I praised her effusively, and she said, "They were really chewy and just so flavorish that I didn't need to eat very many."

(I liked "flavorish.")

Just finished annual compilation of Sozlet Stories for grandparents, 26 pages this year. Thanks guys, I am always so happy in retrospect to have this stuff written down and this format + your feedback really helps.

I like flavorish too.

Which story or stories did you choose for the parenting sample you were working on?

I reworked the latest Jones one a bit (it wasn't quite long enough). This is what I ended up with (it included asking her what she said as I couldn't remember exactly, and then transcribing what she said word-for-word, just adding the "give me a minute" from what I'd remembered her saying the night before):

We have settled into a routine where E.G. reads the sozlet her first book or two of the night while I read the New Yorker, then I read the next few books to her and actually put her to bed. Sozlet delights in stealing the New Yorker from me ("Hey! I'm almost done! Just let me read this one more paraARGH!") as an indication that she and E.G. are finished. (Operation New Yorker Snatch has been getting more and more sophisticated, involving things like blankets over the head from behind, but I digress….) So last night, I was looking for the New Yorker and couldn't find it. Sozlet was the last one who had it, so I asked her where it was. She said she didn't know. I said THINK! She got this intense, slightly squinty, very focused look in her eyes, but didn't say anything. I shot her a quizzical look, and she sighed a little about being distracted from her efforts but patiently explained: "In my head, remember, is where Jones lives. He lives in a big studio in my head, and there is a big screen there. And if I ever need to remember something I just ask Jones to… [i]upload[/i] it. And then I just tuurrn my eyes around so they're backwards and I can watch what is on the screen! And sometimes it's really quick and I see what I'm looking for right away, and sometimes I have to wait for a while for the right thing to come on… give me a minute…" She sat very still and squinted for a bit more, and then suddenly popped up with an "a-ha!" ran off, and came back with the New Yorker held proudly aloft. Thanks, Jones.

One thing I liked about this years' collection was the art, want to do more of that this year.

So here's one she made last night -- started with the tracing of her hand and moved from there.


(It's her walking her cat on the street, with a dog barking at them; she wrote "Dog" [on the dog's collar] and "cat" herself.)

Oooh, aaah, 3D art!

My favorite detail (besides the 3D elements) is the tongue. You don't usually see that in kid's pictures.

Does she have a striped cat? Are those little hearts around her head or something else?

Those are hearts, yep. It basically means she's happy and loves her cat. (She doesn't have one, but REALLY REALLY wishes she did...)

I have to take a picture of this amazing panoramic thing she did in E.G.'s office. He has a ginormous whiteboard -- takes up one whole (rather long) wall -- and often when she visits him she draws something along the bottom with dry-erase markers. The last time, she made this super-detailed scene of a castle, with a king and queen and thrones and beds and tables and everything, then a garden out back, then a pool beyond that. With a flag flying from the top of the castle, and just details galore.

I like how she has her right arm disappear behind the dog. Perspective!

Wow -- those houses in the background have faces! And speaking of faces, how did she make the dog's eye? It looks so, for lack of a better word, three-dimensional -- almost as if it was sticking out of my monitor.