Sozlet stories

I hope so! (Re: the Glare of Death.)

I'm not sure she'd be as lucky as me even armed with that, though, I came very close to blows more than once.

She's definitely E.G.'s kid too. One of the main things is that she's eminently teachable. I'm bad that way, it was the downside of my hippy dippy education. I got it in my head that it was better to figure it out myself and I get rebellious when someone's teaching me how to do something in too much of a top-down way. E.G.'s a bit of a pedant, which can drive me crazy (our first huge fight was when he was trying to teach me something). I leap, ("so you mean...?") and that doesn't do in the scientific process. (This, then this, then this, in precisely this order... if my guess was close to where he was going but wasn't exactly it, he'd say "no" rather than "that's close" or "you're on the right track," that kind of thing.) He's gotten much better but he still thinks and teaches like a scientist.

Sozlet takes direction really well, which is like E.G. -- he's much more results oriented, just wants to know as much as possible and is interested in getting that knowledge through whatever means. She listens patiently to stuff that I'd be interrupting and guessing at, and then at the end, she understands.

This applies to other things too, her first day of softball she stood up there with no idea what she was doing, and I watched as the coach just told her what to do and hey presto, after several adjustments she looked like an actual softball player. She has little ego about this stuff, doesn't care much if she doesn't already know, just wants to learn how and then is happy when she does.

She and E.G. are both schmoozier and more social than me. I spent a lot more time alone when I was a kid than sozlet does, had less of a need to go hang out with people. Kids came to me more than I went to them. Sozlet's very, very social, needs a lot of time with friends or she gets tetchy.

She does value her downtime too though, reading or doing art on her own.

Anyway, lots of similarities between those two for sure.

She may be the most social kid I've ever met - and certainly good with adults. Was she seven when I met her in July '07? She was incredibly charming.

Nice similarities to have, too -- good for her! Thanks for drawing me such a detailed picture.

Soz, you were talking about girl bullys a while ago. Perhaps it was aon another thread.
I thought you might be interested in this artical
http://www.boston.com/community/moms/articles/2010/03/09/mean_girl_behavior_begins_at_early_ages/?page=1

Interesting, that's something I was just talking to a friend about. I've had conversations with some of the moms of these girls who have older siblings, and they're like pshaw, this is nothing. While I know it's comparatively nothing, it seems like now is the time to come down hard on it and try to help prevent the worse stuff later on.

Re: the article, I don't think it's new though -- I went through something very similar in third grade and a lot of the developmental stuff I'm reading indicates that it's common that this stuff starts young.


At any rate, things seem to currently be much better around here (we'll see, it's always changing). Kay has really stepped up. She told sozlet that she felt like she'd been hypnotized by Esse and that the spell was finally broken. She's been standing up to Esse and generally being a good friend to sozlet.

The alliances seem to have shifted. It used to be:

Group A: Sozlet, Kay, Esse (and sometimes M, at lunch and recess)

Group B: Em, N, O

Now it is:

Group A: Sozlet and Kay, with a loose coalition of additional girls (sometimes M, sometimes N, sometimes one or several other girls not already named)

Group B: Em, Esse, O


I've learned that Em, who I'd thought was a follower, is evidently a leader while O is (in the words of another mom) her "puppet." N has really been ill-used by O and Em and is now standing up for herself too, and is mostly out of that group (by choice).

The good news is that sozlet and Kay aren't being exclusionary, they're perfectly happy to hang out with group B girls if they are nice. If they're not, sozlet and Kay are outta there. This has worked out pretty well overall, they've all been able to hang out (or in combinations) and have fun, but there are definitely still mean-girl blips that sozlet and Kay then react to (with censure or just leaving).

The interesting thing is that Esse does seem to keep going to sozlet and Kay as a first choice, then goes back to Em and O if something happens and sozlet and Kay say "yeah, not OK, see ya."

We'll see.

Meanwhile, totally unrelated sozlet story:

E.G. went to a hunting expo thingie (don't ask) and mentioned that almost everything offered for sale was for men, with the exception of some camo-print thong undies. Sozlet's observation (paraphrase): "Those were for men, too. Women don't actually like wearing them, but men like thinking about women wearing them."

I thought that was a kind of startling bit of insight from a nine-year-old.

You don't think I'm going to let that pass, do you?

Haha that's funny!
Hunting expo is rather strange though - I'm with Swimpy: do tell!

Enjoy the harmony around sozlet, Kay and the others while it lasts.

*sigh*

Well, he's kind of gone native. He's been wearing a lot of Cabela's and Carhartt and such and likes the idea of going hunting for hogs. (Wild, feral hogs.) He hasn't actually moved on any of this beyond the clothing (and the facial hair), but a good friend of his is a major hunter type (and a very nice and intelligent guy), who gave us some venison a bit ago (better than I expected). E.G. may end up hunting with him, we'll see. I don't mind if it's deer or these feral hogs (they're basically escaped domestic pigs and they wreak havoc on the environment). I DO mind pretty much everything else. He pretty much agrees with me. <fatalistic shrug> I also don't want a gun in the house. He's been talking about this for quite a while without actually doing anything, something may or may not come of it. I think what is most likely is that he'd go on a hunting trip with this friend and the friend would provide all the gear etc.

The way your telling the story of these dynamics, it sounds a lot like a survivor. Maybe you should hire a film crew and turn the whole thing in a reality show? It all seems very suspenseful.

Fairly random entry in the Annals of Freakiness:

Sozlet was looking distant and then said she had a song going through her head about "that one dude."

I was like, oh, that one dude, of course. (As in, no clue, she listens to a lot of music and could be anything.) I hazarded "Jesse James?" and she said "YES!!!"

I followed up to make sure she wasn't just grabbing a moment, but no, a song about Jesse James by the Highwaymen was the one she was thinking of. I hadn't previously known this song existed.

....

OK so it's not such a great story after all but the kid wants me to post it anyway. I went to look up this song and it turns out to be "If He Came Back Again" which she thought was about Jesse James but seems to me to be more about Elvis? Any any rate, Jesse James was who she was thinking of.

http://www.metrolyrics.com/if-he-came-back-again-lyrics-the-highwaymen.html

Hmmmm ... but it's still somewhat freaky. Say -- before the incident, had you talked about Jesse James in other contexts? Was there anything else that would have both prodded her to think about him and you to ask her about him? That would explain it.

It sounds like a mind meld to me.

Yeah, Vulcans do that.

I was shocked when my younger son announced that he had butchered a deer that someone else had killed and given to him. He has turned into Grizzly Adams right before my very eyes. And he had up to then been pretty much a vegetarian.

Anyway, we had that deer for Christmas Eve dinner and it were mighty tasty.

What about if he gets a gun and you and sozlet get a puppy?

Nope! I thought of it because of the Sandra Bullock Jesse James, and was thinking of him because of stupid TV at the gym (solo, no sozlet).

Swimpy, yeah, its yum. And Michael Pollan approves. (Deer: grassfed, lean and no antibiotics. )

Caribou, I got that suggestion via PM too! Its a good one. We're trying to talk up the hunting cred of black labs, no luck just yet.

As midlife crises go I don't mind this much.

There were a few of these* and I thought "I should post those on sozlet stories" but, of course, I only remember one:


We went to an Easter Egg hunt and as we were standing around chatting afterwards and people were dispersing, a dad walked by pulling a wagon which contained a wailing preschooler (age 3 or 4). I cast him a sympathetic look and he said, "She had her heart set on a blue egg but didn't get one" and shrugged a little sheepishly. She continued to wail. Despondently.

I looked at sozlet to start to suggest that she maybe provide one of her own eggs (she had a blue one) but before I had the thought out she nodded in a "way ahead of you" way, got her egg, and stuffed it with a TON of candy (probably at least a quarter of her total haul) (it was a big egg). Then she ran after the wagon (which had gotten pretty far while she was making preparations) and presented it to the wailing little girl. Who abruptly stopped wailing and BEAMED at sozlet.

And that was before she opened it and saw the candy.

Very sweet.


*Thoughtful things she's been doing for other people.

Oh, that was so VERY nice of her. Way to go

Amusing image:

It's at that point in spring when the mornings are quite cool (~50's) but then it warms up significantly until it's 70's and 80's by afternoon. The high today was supposed to be 83 and everyone went to school in their warm-weather clothes -- tank-tops, t-shirts, shorts, etc.

But they have a morning recess and the temperature hadn't risen significantly yet at that point this morning. So they were very cold and formed a "penguin huddle," (sozlet's term), bunched together for warmth. Relatively warm people at the outside, totally freezing people in the middle. The whole entire class. Strays would go run around to try to warm up, fail, and go back to the huddle. At one point they tried to run around the field en masse (keeping to the huddle formation), but that really didn't work. So they gave up and just stayed huddled until the recess was over. (Me: "What did you guys do while you were in the huddle?" Sozlet: "I dunno, talked. Thought warm thoughts. Tried to warm up the super-cold people.")