And after school, a storm

Whether the weather is warm, 

Whether the weather is hot, 

We have to put up with the weather,

Whether we like it or not.

(Traditional rhyme)

While on the back patio, I notice that the wind picks up and the sky darkens. The girls stop playing; we all look up.

I yell, "Run for it!" and the girls, the cat, and I -- in that order -- all sprint for the door. Before I reach the door, the sky opens up and, within a second or two, I am drenched.

Malibu the cat, who has been behind her, suddenly overtakes Molly. But even as I hear a very loud bang and shattering glass, I don't yet know the extent of her mischief until I discover Devyn, under whose feet Malibu had run, on the kitchen floor. She is rubbing the elbow on which she'd landed (after banging into the trolley). Malibu is nowhere to be found...

I wish that I'd taken a photo of the sky

and of the storm.

At any rate, before bedtime, Molly inspects the front yard for damage.

Not a light lunch...

Devyn: I like the idea of being born over and over again. So the world never ends...

Molly: But, wait! You would have to be born first.


(Back-posted)

The Three Little Pigs: In, Down, Over

We have a number of versions of The Three Little Pigs and, with each version that I read to her, poor Molly becomes frustrated beyond belief.

Why? Because the wolf blows the house in and not down or over. 

Little pig, little pig, let me come in. 

'No, no, by the hair on my chiny chin chin.' 

Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in.*

Surely, she has asked me, there is a version that has the correct word? In fact, she can recall that I've read it to her in the past but I have no such memory. I have explained, while stifling a laugh, that the word is used because it rhymes with "chinny chin chin" but it's to no avail. She anticipates, at each sitting, the first huffing-and-puffing episode with hope and, looking up at the ceiling, expresses her disappointment and frustration when the wolf threatens to blow the house in.

Why is she hung up on a preposition? I've wondered. Well, in her world, as I've come to understand it, perfection is something you should expect and which you should want to expect. I'm not exaggerating. Despite all my efforts to explain that perfection is not attainable, that striving towards it leads to strife, that everyone has to accept degrees of imperfection and accommodation, the child will not believe me. YOU may settle for imperfection, but she will not.

That many things come easily to her only reinforces her drive. As such, we had the following conversation on May 6:

– Why do you like everything to be perfect? 

– Because everything is boring if it isn't perfect.  

– What does being perfect mean?  

          – Getting things perfect.

– How can you make mistakes if everything has to be perfect?    

– I won't. 

– I make mistakes and I'm not perfect. Is that OK? 

          – I'm perfect.

It not only extends to conversations but to interactions in general. She exacts perfection from the world. Honestly, I didn't quite know what to say the other day when, as a friend of hers expected a gaming device to be charged immediately after plugging it in, Molly, in a world-weary kind of way, snapped: "Just let it suck up some electricity first!"

She also has an adorable, if perplexing, habit of telling you to say something:

– Is this a good idea, Mum? Say, 'That's a good idea'.   

– That's a good idea.

In this way, she constructs the world as she likes it. Lately, we've taken to imitating her in a very affectionate way:

– Is this a good idea, Mummy? Say, 'That's a good idea.' 

– That's a good idea, Daddy.

But, as you might expect, she doesn't like this at all as, we've discovered, she has a proprietary attachment to this manner of speech:

– Hey! You can't say that, Daddy! 

– Why not? 

– That's MY expression.

Of course, we find her adorable as everyone finds their children adorable. Devyn, however, has another approach which is completely understandable:

– Devyn, why didn't you repeat what she said to say?   (I asked, out of curiosity, one day.) 

– Oh. I never say what she commands me to say.

And, that, I've concluded, is how the rest of the world is going to react to our little perfectionist; so we don't correct Devyn's behaviour and, surprisingly, Molly doesn't ever press the issue with her.

This disposition of hers may be advantageous in the area of computer games. Unfortunately, she gets upset when a computer game doesn't behave in a way that she would like it to: If she thinks a snowman should be able to be increased to 2x its size but the game only allows 1.5x, then Molly gets emotional. She used to throw tantrums at two and three years old and each session invariably ended with me telling her that, if she was going to play a game, she would have to follow its rules and not get upset; otherwise, she'd have to turn to another activity.

Keith explained it to her this way: "The only way that you will ever get a game to do exactly what you want is to program one yourself." She seemed to understand this but it was little consolation.

Thankfully, she is obsessed with The Magic School Bus cartoon and books and the teacher, Ms. Frizzle, in the cartoon always says, "Get out there and make some mistakes" or some such thing, which emphasizes my own words that sum up the we-learn-by-making-mistakes approach to life. She takes it all in--over and over and over again--but she doesn't agree.

So, when I correct her behaviour, she quickly points out, "This is MY way of doing something." Frankly, this is fine if she's drawing or creating but not if she's doing something dangerous or unacceptable.

Molly will ask me—or her father—to please use the word "down" if we're going to read the story of The Three Little Pigs to her. I don't see anything wrong with doing so and she doesn't care about losing the rhyme scheme.

Perhaps she'll create computer games one day. Last year, she wanted to be a "brain doctor" or a "muffin maker"—it was all so unclear to her. She tells me these days that she will, in fact, be a doctor; but, no matter how capable she becomes of creating things or of fixing people, the wolf will always blow the house in, and not down or over, as long as she's reading somebody else's work. Life's just like that. Of course, she could decide to write her own version of The Three Little Pigs. . .
__


Attributions:
 Illustration by Leonard Leslie Brooke. 1904 adaptation. (source: Wikipedia)
*Jacobs, Joseph (1890). English Fairy Tales. Oxford University. pp. 68–72. (source: Wikipedia

Kabul Beauty School (Random House, April 2007)

As often happens, I find a brilliant passage in an article that describes something far more effectively than I. In this case, the following from the New York Times captures both the co-author, Deborah Rodriquez, and the bottom-line effect of Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind The Veil:

The book, released April 10 [2007] by Random House, is a story of a
flame-haired, cigarette-smoking, multiply-divorced Michigan hairdresser who travels to Afghanistan, falls in love with the country, and returns later to set up a beauty school.

The story provides a greater appreciation of the cultural mores (and sometimes laws) governing male-female relationships in Afghanistan and it is this kind of ethnographic detail of both fiction and nonfiction that I generally crave.

Initially, I wanted to say that the account is kind of thin. The author could have done more to flesh out relationships, maybe focus more indepthly on the follow-up of the individual lives that she affected.

And I asked myself: What was Deborah Rodriguez's original intention in writing this book? Clearly, she wants to let the world know about the organization responsible for getting the beauty school-cum-salon off the ground.

She probably wants people to know her own difficulties in getting and keeping funding for the school which included starting a salon of her own. (In this way, she trained would-be professional beauticians, generated revenue and sourced additional teachers as the project grew.)

I like to think that she wants to convey the magnitude of the accomplishment: Empowering women with skills to run their own salons and generate income for themselves or for their families seems no small feat in a country in which women are discouraged from doing such things.

Considering the general public reaction to the book, my own observations seem inconsequential. The narrative, at times, is jagged and I wonder what, if anything, I might be missing. But I like the dialogue and the sometimes creative means by which the author overcomes language barriers.

I think she fails in some important respects. The personal stories -- when mentioned -- are not detailed enough for me. I still want to know what happened -- what really happened -- to Topekai, Baseera, Roshanna, Laila and Hama. I am still curious about Shaz.

But there are bigger problems and I may have been too optimistic in thinking that she and others might have started social reform in Afghanistan from which future generations will benefit.

According to the NPR in June 2007, the details already shared in the narrative cause controversy and anger:

the subjects of her book say Rodriguez and her newfound fame have put theirlives in danger . . .

About the subject women, the article continues:

At least one of the girls from the school has made an escape plan. One, who is called "Topekai" in the book, says her husband, who read the book, is moving their family to Pakistan.

The others — whose husbands are unaware of the
book — say they don't know what to do.

The woman called "Baseera" in Rodriguez's book says it may not matter. She is convinced someone will kill her.

This is serious and saddening: Cross-cultural value systems colliding, sociopolitical fears casting shadows over well-intentioned efforts.

And there is yet more controversy. According to quoted subjects in the New York Times (April 2007), there are questions about consistency and accuracy and perhaps enough changes to actual details that place the very nature of the narrative in question.

Frankly, like the project itself, the book initially seemed to be the start of something and, hopefully, the promise of something more. Now, I am not so certain. Did I even read a memoir?

Shades of Truth: An Account of a Kabul School Is Challenged (Abby Ellin, NYT, April 29, 2007)

Subjects of 'Kabul Beauty School' Face New Risks
(Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, NPR, June 1, 2007)