Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Where's Weather Pixie? The website has gone down before but always popped back within 48 hours. Whenever I see a blog with a Weather Pixie in the sidebar, I think, oh good, this person is a little bit corny like me.
Jack Black says having two kids is more than twice as hard as having one. That may be so, but I'm pretty sure three children isn't a huge leap in effort over two, or four exponentially more difficult than three. At five you're into something else. I have three siblings. The five + kid homes moved into a different dynamic. Most of the large families in my town were Irish & Italian Catholic. They were definitely louder, usually less neat, furniture was entirely functional, the kitchen was always in use & there was always a big kettle in sight on the stove or in the dish drainer. Most had a large, old, out of tune upright piano in the living or dining room, the top crowded with family photos & nick nacks, & although I wasn't a very good pianist, they usually liked if I made some simple pleasant noises on it. By contrast, I had a friend who was an only child. His parents, best I could tell, had jobs like my parents. But he had his own room with two lawn chairs in it, his personal black & white TV, & a substantial allowance. He was also in DeMolay, a club for boys who think it's cool to be an underage Mason. He was a fairly well-adjusted guy, if a bit too fussy. Kids like that get to organize their space anyway they want it.
Two kids I knew from large families moved as teenagers into their unfinished attics, which were stinking hot in summer & cold & drafty in winter.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Jack Black says having two kids is more than twice as hard as having one. That may be so, but I'm pretty sure three children isn't a huge leap in effort over two, or four exponentially more difficult than three. At five you're into something else. I have three siblings. The five + kid homes moved into a different dynamic. Most of the large families in my town were Irish & Italian Catholic. They were definitely louder, usually less neat, furniture was entirely functional, the kitchen was always in use & there was always a big kettle in sight on the stove or in the dish drainer. Most had a large, old, out of tune upright piano in the living or dining room, the top crowded with family photos & nick nacks, & although I wasn't a very good pianist, they usually liked if I made some simple pleasant noises on it. By contrast, I had a friend who was an only child. His parents, best I could tell, had jobs like my parents. But he had his own room with two lawn chairs in it, his personal black & white TV, & a substantial allowance. He was also in DeMolay, a club for boys who think it's cool to be an underage Mason. He was a fairly well-adjusted guy, if a bit too fussy. Kids like that get to organize their space anyway they want it.
Two kids I knew from large families moved as teenagers into their unfinished attics, which were stinking hot in summer & cold & drafty in winter.
