Writer's Block

I don't have writer's block, it's not why I've been gone for a few days... really? It's been that long? Damn. Have I been that busy? Really? No? Huh.

I don't think I have writer's block per se, more like writer's can't give a shit... no, that's not right either. Hmmm...

It's that weird feeling of "I should write something, but right now this infomercial for the Flav-O-Wave is so interesting!" and the little voice of integrity in the back of your head is not yelling "You worthless hunk of shit! Use your talent and get with the make-y word-y! You think just anyone can write? You think that you can just slack off because not a single damn thing you've written has ever amounted to anything? That's quitting talk!"

No, that voice is saying "Holy shit, they just dipped that turkey in liquid nitrogen, and they're going to cook it in three hours??? That's crazy talk! I got to know if this works! Get cookies for this!"

My Jiminy Cricket has turned into a fat guy wearing sweatpants. Damnit.

Well, okay there's hope. For one thing, I started this blog in the hope of jump starting my love of writing again. Ignore the fact I haven't updated in a week, because sometimes real life gets in the way. Remember the list to the side? Father, husband, etc... yeah, writer is the caboose of that list, and sometimes I have to forgo the writing so I can let The Boy shine a flashlight in my eye for half an hour so he can study how it works. Yes he did this. It was how I put him to bed last night. I let him hold my eye open for what seemed like half and hour so he could shine a flashlight in it in a dark room and stare at it rolling around and hear me say things like, "Okay, let go now, Daddy has to blink. Seriously, let me blink now. Don't touch my eye. No no, don't put your finger in my eye, just look please."

I'm just saying, Father's day next year better kick ass.

One of the funny things that The Boy has with the speech thing is that every question sounds a bit like "How dat?", when he means "who's that?" or "what's that?". Because he's four, he's still not really clear on the idea that just because he can see something, we might not be able to. We get a lo of him walking up with a picture of something him showing us the back of it, pointing at something and saying "How dat?". Then it's the negotiation to try to get him to turn the picture around, and try to guess what he was pointing at, since if we say "What were you pointing at", he'll simply repeat his question without pointing. "How dat?". Or else he'll point vaguely across the room and ask, and we have to play what is the boy pointing at? The stakes of this game are high, since we might mislabel something, and it will take a week or so to correct it, since once he has the name of something, it's pretty much stuck.

Which brings me to the next bit of fun, the hell of teaching Gifted (note the big G) children. I am seeing the symptoms in The Boy, and it's giving me this odd itchy feeling in the back of my head, as if somehow my dead mother is standing behind me laughing until blood shoots out of her nose. One of the things she used to say to me in moments of extremis was "I hope when you have kids, they are just like you so you know what I've been going through!"
To be clear, my mother loved me dearly, and was a mama bear of intense ferocity when she though we were being messed with, but I tried her patience something fierce. Gifted children are great, but the problem is... they mess up the curriculum. Their brains work in odd ways. They think it's funny to screw with you. AND, if something is too easy, it's just as funny to fail at it spectacularly than to do it perfectly.
In his case, the Occupational Therapist and her boss is having a hell of a time designing things that are difficult enough to keep The Boy interested. He's learning to read, and the track they're taking is to show him a card with a word on it, and he has to match it to a picture. Of course, he has to do it ten times in a row to have it considered "right", and he has to do it three times, so thirty matches of the same word to the same picture. Now it starts with him nailing it perfectly, BAM! ten out of ten. Then eight out of ten. Then none right. The protocol says in that case, they can't move on and have to keep doing it until he gets it perfect x number of times, blah blah. The poor OT wants to stop because it's obvious he's got it fine, he's just bored and messing with her, as evidenced by him pretending he's gong to put the card down right, then suddenly slamming it onto the wrong picture and shouting (for example) "CAR! AH HA HA HA HA HA!!!". Yes yes, very funny. This is a common joke for him now that he "gets" talking, which is that it's funny to call things by the wrong name. The OT gets it, but she has to mark it wrong, and I have flashbacks to grade school.

"If you're so smart, why did you fail this test?"
"Well, I thought it would be more interesting to do it upside down."

"What did you do now?"
"I did all the math in base five. Look they're all right if you convert the numbers... to... base... yeah, I'll go to my room."

"Another note?"
"I figured out a better solution to the problem! Look if you just..."
"Look, you have to give them the answer they want."
"Yeah, but they asked for the best way to do it, and I figured out a better way, and I got marked wrong, but it's not wrong! Then the teacher told me not to be a smart ass and..."

"So what do you think happens next in the story?"
"Well, he goes to town and he sees Indian Joe and tries to catch him, but he and Becky get lost in a cave..."
"Did you read ahead!?"
"I finished it on the bus on the way home."
"You're not supposed to read ahead! How can I test you on the book?"
"But I thought the point was to read the book! You're punishing me for reading?"
"You're supposed to read to the end of the chapter and stop!"
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! Why would you do that? Who reads a book like that?"
"You have to give the other kids time to catch up, so that..."
"SCREW the other kids! I can't help it if they're too stupid to read!"

"Another trip to the principals' office, huh? For a smart kid, how can you be so dumb?"

Yeah, I recognize the signs.
We've had to tell his OT that she can never, ever open the cupboard under the sink in front of The Boy. If he ever sees exactly how we open the magic lock, the Kingdom of Draino will be open to him.

I think his entire childhood will be filled with my vain attempts to outsmart the little twerp. Thanks Mom.