I'm Going to Sneeze Six Times. Bless Me.

We didn't blow away or slide away or sail away.

Hurray.

I don't really know what else to say.

There was some sun today.

I want to play.

Hey!

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Right, so is anyone else watching "Tin Man" on the SciFi channel? It's awesome. It's a twist on "The Wizard of Oz", starring Alan Cumming (love him) and Zooey Deschanel (adore her). We're big fans of stories that turn fairy tales on their heads.

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I haven't started my Christmas shopping. That's semi-problematic, although I pretty much know what needs to be got. But still. Should probably get on that.

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I am decidedly less glumpy than I was yesterday. I'm not a very glumpy gal by nature. Stuff bothers me, but I usually don't take it into my bones and live with it for hours and hours. Yesterday's version of glumpiness was the sort that made me feel just exhausted and heavy. I couldn't really think or do or any of that. I pretty much just wanted to eat chocolate (we didn't have any) and sleep (I didn't). Today is much better. Although I have decided that I should keep a stash of M&Ms handy, in case of emergencies, you know.

And then Sling invited me over and he had played a Perry Como song for me. Here's what he didn't know when he did that: I love Perry Como. Have since I was too tiny to know what a crush is. Dame Judi and Sean Connery had records of all those great old black and white singers (I always think of them as being in black and white), but Perry was my favorite. He was so cute and his voice was so mellow. I loved looking at his album covers while he crooned. And I was a toddler. Seriously. It's like, my love of Perry Como is so ancient that I hadn't even ever really thought about how much I love him until I read Sling's post and listened to the song and then it all just came rushing back; it was very visceral.

Plus, Sling calls me "Rainey", which I love because not very many people do, but the ones who do are really special to me. Like my nieces. And really old friends. And in some cases, newer friends.

Thanks again for the perk up, buddy. You rock really super hard and I love you. Mean it.

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I got a call from The Child's math teacher last night. Apparently they'd had a super hard algebra test last week. Usually she's really good at algebra. It's funny because the kid still doesn't have all her math facts memorized (neither do I if the truth be told) but she has a real facility for (what I consider to be) the more abstract stuff, like algebra and Euclidean geometry and the Pythagorean theorem. But this test apparently kicked her arse, so much so that toward the end she put a Kleenex on the end of her pencil, waved it at the teacher and said, "I surrender".

That's hysterical.

What's not hysterical is that she needs to pass the test to get a passing grade in math this trimester and she needs passing grades since this report card is what the high schools will be looking at for admission. So the teacher is letting her finish the test this afternoon. Which is mighty fine of him, if I say so myself.

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High school. This application process is another arse kicker. I seriously didn't have to fill out this many forms when I was applying to college. It's insane. Plus, she has entrance exams this weekend and next. Fortunately, the schools to which she's applying don't use the exams for eligibility but for placement purposes (both schools have different learning tracks in their curriculum. Curriculi? Whatever). But still, it would be nice if she could do semi-well on them. Which, between you and me, is doubtful because she's one of those kids who doesn't test well. If you sat her down and asked her to explain a recently learned concept she could do it. Ask her the same question on a piece of paper while she holds a number 2 pencil and tell her she's got 15 minutes to answer and not so much.

It's maddening to have a kid who's bright as a button and struggles to prove it in any quantitative way.

The good news? If, by some chance, she isn't admitted to either school, I'm just calling our pastor. Seriously. A phone call from the Very Reverend to an admissions office would, I suspect, have some serious pull. Sometimes you gotta call in all your chips. This could be one of those times. Yeah. I'm a little worried.

Right, so I have a nice long day ahead of me and the will to do what needs be done so I'm off.

And the rain has stopped. Praise be.

Gifted Children

When The Child was very wee, 2ish, The Spouse was quizzing her about things she knew. He asked her, "What does a kitty say?"

"Meow".

"What does a doggie say?"

"Woof, woof".

"How many is this?" (holding up 3 fingers).

"Tree".

"What is Hegel's dialectic?"

"Huh?"

So he thought it would be amusing to teach her "Thesis, antithesis, synthesis".

Then he'd show her off. "Honey, what is Hegel's Dialectic?"

"Thethis, antithethis, synthethis".

Clever girl.

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She's still being serious about math and at dinner wanted to prepare for a quiz today by sharing with us what she'd learned in class. It was this:

The Pythagorean theorem: The sum of the areas of the two squares on the legs (a and b) equals the area of the square on the hypotenuse (c).The theorem is as follows:

In any right triangle, the area of the square whose side is the hypotenuse (the side of a right triangle opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of areas of the squares whose sides are the two legs (i.e. the two sides other than the hypotenuse).

If we let c be the length of the hypotenuse and a and b be the lengths of the other two sides, the theorem can be expressed as the equation a²+b²=c² or, solved for c:

√ a²+b²= c

That's right, friends, Euclidean geometry. Not that I understand it. I just like saying "Euclidean". And "hypotenuse"

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Here's the thing about my generation of parents. They all think their child(ren) is/are gifted. It starts really early. "Oh, little Sebastian was sleeping through the night from the first day". "My little Eudora, she's so gifted. Why, she potty trained herself at 4 months". "I really don't mean to brag, but Anastasia was reading Dickens, to herself mind you, when she was 18 months. I think she's gifted".

Here's a news flash. Hardly any of the little darlings of this generation are baby Einsteins. Sure, a few of them are. And I played classical music to my little darling, too. U2, The Beatles, Dylan, like that. I sang her a lullaby in Spanish and counted her little toes with her and enrolled her in dance class. You do those things. And certainly, children are born with unique gifts, aptitudes and talents. Which are superfantastic and should be nurtured. But come on. The fact that I happen to think my child is the cat's meow (a sound she could replicate in 13 languages, including Latin by the time she was 6 months old) doesn't mean she's gifted. She's my gift. There's a difference.

So when we were teaching her Hegel's Dialectic and "Don't Cry for Me Argentina", it was mostly because it was fun. Like having a pet monkey. The fact that she still remembers that stuff and that she now actually understands what the Dialectic is all about doesn't mean she's going to invent a perpetual motion machine before she graduates 8th grade. It just means that little baby brains are sponges and they can soak up a lot of groovy stuff.

Speaking of Andrew Lloyd Webber, "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" really was her favorite song when she was wee. Only she thought it was about her. She sang, "Don't Cry for Me, Boofacina", which was her nickname. It was pretty adorable.