Me: Arrrgh! ENTER A VALID LAST NAME? I'LL SHOW YOU 'VALID'!
Al: [without looking at me or screen, leaps out of bed and starts for door, then pauses] Do you want me to get one of my credit cards, or are you going to remove the hyphen?
The Moral of the Story
At breakfast the other morning, the Beaner held up a book with an orange cover (yes, we allow books and magazines at the table, though I sweep them away if I notice he's not eating) and announced, "Mom, it just occurred to me what Green Eggs and Ham is about."
"What's that, boo?"
"It's about no-thank-you helpings."
"That's exactly right, boo. It *is* about no-thank-you helpings."
I was impressed with his rudimentary literary analysis, but this conversation also got me thinking. A "no-thank-you helping" is something I was forced to eat as a child: one serving spoon's worth of whatever it was I'd just declined (politely or not). I'm assuming my mother learned the term from her mother or grandmother (though she might have coined it herself, and obviously the Beaner got it from both of us), but the Beaner is right that the concept has been around at least as long as Green Eggs and Ham—and probably longer.
Did you have to eat no-thank-you helpings as a kid? If so, did your mom or grandmom call them that, or something else?
Bad Blogger, Great Kid
OK, so obviously I fell off the NaBloPoMo wagon. I found that I just didn't have enough material to write about every day—at least at length. I have things on my mind, but that doesn't mean I want to sit down and expound upon them anymore, apparently.
I did want to say here, today, that the Beaner has been pretty dreamy lately. He's amazingly independent, he's a downright fantastic reader and writer, and he's even been impressing me with his manners. Rather heartbreakingly, he said to me the other day, "I don't want to disappoint you, Mom," which I think reflects as poorly on me as a mother as it does positively on him as a son. Yeah, I'm a mom who probably expresses disappointment way too often.
It helps that *I* love the whole School House Rock series, too, and know the words to most of the songs. Coming down to the living room to watch the DVD with the Beaner has become my favorite thing about Saturday mornings, partly for the snuggling, and partly for the shared connection to the past—it reminds me of how I spent Saturday mornings when I was a kid.
Plus, it's a nice way to revive a connection with my kid at a time when I felt like his Dad was doing most of the parenting and playing. There's nothing more gratifying than being asked to sing the Preamble to the Constitution in Wegmans while pushing a cart with one hand and holding your five year-old's hand with the other—except perhaps being able to belt it out in tune.
Damn Hackers
Instead of blogging about the connection between work and Richie Cunningham tonight, as I had planned to do, I spent the past couple hours cleaning up even more crap files left on my site by hackers. (I cleaned up a ton more the other night.)
Oh well; at least I got to brush up on my unix command-line skills.
I'm an introvert. You are a wonderful person and I like you. But now please shush.
Jonathan Rauch
