Those of you who know my sweet little girl know how passionate she is. She's so full of love and affection.
Back in the fall, at school, she would feel compelled to hop out of line each time she passed her brother in the hall. (She's a 1st grader; he's a 3rd grader.) She wanted to hug him and tell him how much she loves him. After all, it had been three hours since they ate breakfast together...what if he needed a reminder of her love?
Well, needless to say, he was not in favor of these spontaneous bursts of affection at school.
Pumpkin, of course, felt a little rejected by his response.
We had some conversations at home and reassured Pumpkin that she could hug & kiss her Mommy and Daddy ANY time she wants to--completely spontaneously. That helped a bit.
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The other day, I found this written exchange between the two of them.
It cracks me up.
Pumpkin: I Love You! Do you?
Superboy: Do not do thiz agin, but yes and yes allways
One of my favorite things to read about & think about is language acquisition. It's one of those topics that just makes me marvel at how amazing our Creator is.
This TED video is about 10 minutes long. The speaker is Patricia Kuhl, who is a professor in the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences at the University of Washington. (cue Liz Lemon: I want to go to there. Studying "early language & brain development", and analyzing "how young children learn"?? Yes, please.) Kuhl does a great job of summarizing some of the research findings she & her team have achieved in recent years.
It's really amazing to me how our body, soul, and spirit are so intertwined. Yes, the good Lord gave us physical beings (cell, tissue, organ), but he threaded those material blessings together with the immaterial. It's an astonishing miracle that He performs with every new life.
A few things that this video reinforces to me: Our brains are designed to interact with each other. A baby is designed to lock eyes with someone who loves him/her & absorb the beauty of that person's words. Life is designed to be lived in community. Words are designed to be shared with each other as our lives weave together.
{Sidenote: My mother is reading about Dietrich Bonhoeffer lately. The concept of "life together" comes to mind, Mom, when I watch this TED video.}
Kuhl touches on "audio/video learning" vs. "human interaction learning" at about 7 minutes into this video. That part of the video gave me goosebumps! So amazing.
Ellie + Abbie + TED{Ellie, I think I forgot to mention to you: Way back when you posted this link, I re-posted the same link on a Wendell Berry yahoo group message board. This talk elicited QUITE a reaction. Major objections. I know you'd love reading the responses as much as I did. I'll try to find them in the archives for you. Lots of food for thought.}
Superboy is taking a gymnastics class at our county recreation center.
The session is 10 weeks long.
His class meets once a week.
In his class are about 8 other boys; they're all between 6 and 8 yrs old.
We don't know anyone else in the class. (i.e., Superboy isn't taking the class with a friend or anything.)
Superboy's coach is Russian & has a very thick accent.
Sometimes I can't understand what the coach is saying.
Superboy seems to be able to understand him just fine.
This week, after class, Superboy came over to where I was sitting and told me that he's becoming great friends with one of the other boys.
I asked what the boy's name was.
"Veal."
Did I hear that right?
"Can you say that again...? What is his name?"
"Veal."
Okay.
I asked for Superboy to point out his friend, which he did. We made our way over to them so I could say hi to the mom and meet Veal the Gymnast.
As the mom & I shook hands, she told me that "Will is really enjoying this class."
Will??
(Can you guess what had happened? Superboy only knows the names of the other little boys because the coach calls out the names of the boys during class.)
Back there at the beginning, as I see now, my life was all time and almost no memory. Though I knew early of death, it still seemed to be something that happened only to other people, and I stood in an unending river of time that would go on making the same changes and the same returns forever.
And now, nearing the end, I see that my life is almost entirely memory and very little time. Toward the end of my life at Squires Landing I began to understand that whenever death happened, it happened to me. That is knowledge that takes a long time to wear in. Finally it wears in. Finally I realized and fully accepted that one day I would belong entirely to memory, and it would then not be my memory that I belonged to, and I went over to Goforth to see if there was any room left beside my parents’ graves. I learned that there was room for one more; if it belonged to anybody, it belonged to me.
Jayber Crow
W. Berry
p24
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I just re-posted a story from Superboy's birthday party last year. The superhero control panel craft that I mentioned yesterday brought to mind the Thor story.
I was able to attend my second ever Veritas Forum event earlier tonight, which featured a lecture given by Dr. Kyle Van Houtan.
The topic was, "Is God Green?", and the lecture was absolutely filled with thought-provoking insights.
One thing that really stuck out to me was Dr. Van Houtan's statement that ecological destruction often goes hand in hand with social oppression and injustice. There's so much packed into that statement. So many historical eras/events to consider.
Related: There are a number of video/audio presentations available on the Veritas Forum website. This one caught my eye, and it happens to feature Dr. Van Houtan as moderator: What is a Beautiful World?
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Another kid-funny from Pumpkin: She has recently been very interested in roller skating around the kitchen (and sometimes, when she's really brave, around the flat part of the driveway.) The skates she's using are the kind made by Fisher Price that strap on over the child's shoe. She loves them. This afternoon, as she was skating, she looked up at me and said,
"I really need to wear knee patches when I roller skate."
I've been meaning to ask Hunter what he thinks about us getting her some "real" roller skates or roller blades for her upcoming birthday. And maybe some "knee patches" as well.
