Random Friday

(Originally posted at Rational Jenn)

I've had a lovely couple of days without too many pressing commitments. It's been so nice, although I have had more than a few moments where I felt a bit lost for something to do. Strange feeling!

It's been hot hot hot Georgia hot. The kids and their friends played in the sprinklers for HOURS yesterday afternoon, which really exhausted them! I was tempted to let them do it again today, but figured Brendan wouldn't be too thrilled with us encouraging the grass to grow even more quickly.

I've had fun playing around on the Positive Discipline Ning site I told you about. As you can see, I added a badge-thingy to my sidebar so you can go there quickly and easily. Here's a link to my personal profile. I started a group for homeschoolers who use Positive Discipline (Dr. Nelsen asked me to, eek!), and I hope to check out some of the other groups more in depth this weekend.

I forgot to mention yesterday about the Positive Discipline Tool Cards co-developed by Dr. Nelsen. I think I'm going to check them out, maybe do a product review for those who are interested. I like the first suggestion of a way to use the deck of cards:

Choose one card and practice for a week.
In one year you’ll be a perfect parent—
or you can start again.

Heh. :o)

Even though I have simply TONS about which I'd like to write, I've still not had too much time in which to do so: that "free time" I suddenly have seems to be filled up with lots of children--many of them mine!--who seem to need me to do stuff. I will carve out a few hours this weekend, with the help of Brendan, so I can update my Blog Roll and finish a few pending posts and generally get my head back on straight. Can. Not. Wait.

But before that can happen, we have Sean's actual birthday to celebrate TOMORROW! Can you believe he's a year old already? The first year goes so quickly, and they change so much. It's really amazing, even the third time around. They start off so little and completely helpless and dependent--one revolution around the Sun and suddenly they are conceptual and climbing the furniture! They start off more helpless than any other baby animal on the face of the planet, and a year later have cognitively surpassed the most intelligent of the intelligent animals.

Oh yes, he is conceptual--that is, he is looking at instances of objects and grouping them together by similarities in his mind, and he even has a few words to prove it. He calls cars and motorcycles and trucks "Pbpbpbpbpbpss" and will point out any light or ceiling fan in any room if you say "Where's the fan?" He's been signing milk and waving bye-bye for a while now, and has recently added eat and airplane to his list. He says "ma-ma-ma-ma-ma" (Mama, I think) when he's mad or frustrated and needs me to fix something. Usually, he's crawling toward me as he's saying it. He understands even more than he can reproduce himself. A "Sean, what's in your mouth?" makes him immediately spit out whatever's in his mouth!

Little humans are really terribly smart things. :o)

Okay, so I'm going to go hang out with The People a bit before bedtime. More to come this weekend, I hope!

Oh, and don't forget to stop over at Diana's and wish her congratulations on getting her PhD!

And one more thing--The Undercurrent has a special Summer edition coming out. Order some to take to your 4th of July tea parties, or donate them to a local university Objectivist club! I ordered some today myself.