Word to the wise: when your (nearly) four-year-old daughter calls you a "buttock" (guilty, but beside the point), admonishment is somewhat diminished in effectiveness when preceded by uncontrollable laughter. Just a thought. This kid is going to be a challenge, I think. Very, very smart, beautiful, moody and mischievous; all the makings of some interesting teenage years. And it's impossible, I think, to brace for those without making Bad Things happen.
As for the older child, we found out some interesting things about her last week. For one, it's nearly impossible for her to read in the typical classroom position (seated at a desk with book or paper flat in front of her). Her eyes just don't track. She squirms around as if she's being bitten by insects. So it's possible that a great many of her problems getting through third grade are due to this; we have no idea why it's so, but identifying it and providing some sort of workaround (having the material vertical helps. A lot.) is what's important in the near term. Her ESE teacher has been just wonderful lately in identifying and solving impediments to Emily's education, so much so that I'm becoming reluctant to consider putting her in another school next year. It's possible that schools more geared to those with learning and/or functional disabilities might do better at this sort of thing, but there's some risk in assuming that that's so. The "vision thing" was discovered about two-thirds of the way through FCAT, so it may have been too late. And Emily seems to progress in large, discrete jumps rather than incrementally, so it's hard to say when she's going to latch up to the next level in reading. The math latchup happened about mid-autumn, and now she's ahead of grade level (where before she was failing).
I also found out they'd administered an IQ test to her last year (I had no idea), and she scored well above average. If they tested her on a bad day, she may in fact have a real IQ higher than mine (I'm no ball of fire, so this is in no way an invitation to engage in a war of IQ scores). There have always been signs that she's quite a bit above average in thought process, but every parent thinks that about their child, I think.
About the Schiavo, thing, I have deliberately refrained from comment (for the most part, anyway). I've heard various people suggest that this proves that Terry has no cerebral cortex remaining, and despite disclaimers that they aren't physicians they conclude that she's hopelessly brain-damaged. I look at the image comparisons and note that one of these things is clearly not like the other, and not just in the details. What's completely different is everything. Neither image looks anything at all like anything I've seen of head CT. Now, if you look at MRI studies, you're looking at a whole different level of detail. An MRI would be conclusive, and if one's been done there should be no doubt. All of which is why I'd want to see an assessment independent of any funding or direction from Michael Schiavo or the Schindlers. If such an assessment has already been done, then I'd guess that the plug ought to be kept pulled.
On the home-improvement front, I'm building some shelves to go into the recessed area above the television to hold the new (and enormous) home theater receiver and some other electronics, and possibly my collection of vinyl. My significant other keeps waffling about how she wants it to look, so it's a challenge. Kind of like government contracting: you agree that you'll do X, and at every step of the process X is redefined (usually without adequate schedule amendments). And the design reviews...you don't even want to know. Anyway, finished gluing up one shelf from furniture-grade birch plywood and some pieces of poplar (trying to match the grain in some other furniture as much as possible, which is why I'm not going with oak) and the wife declared that she might not paint it after all, because it looked like furniture. Since I'd already bought the wood before she decided she was going to paint it, I wasn't nearly as surprised as she was. Tools used: a Skil saw, with a 150-tooth finishing blade, assorted clamps, wire brads, and wood glue. I've still got to design the pass-through for the cords, but I think I'll probably do that with a sabre saw (with a fine blade, of course). And of course hiding the cords is going to be an adventure. I constantly marvel, though, at how the expectation for whipping this sort of thing out quickly is there, but the willingness to sacrifice funds and garage floor space to proper woodworking equipment is not. I mean, a bandsaw doesn't really take up <i>that</i> much room.
Oh, and the installation of flooring in the attic (to, hopefully, preclude the foot through the ceiling maneuver when navigating up there) proceeds apace; I've put cross-members in and am screwing plywood down to it. I think sometime in the next week, all of the Christmas stuff is going to be able to go back upstairs. Just in time, too, because the shipment of flooring for the master bedroom just landed. The adventure never ends.
The reading list (when I've got time for it) is currently Democracy In America. Haven't made it past the introduction yet, though. This has been in the queue for nearly a year, I think. Some books are perpetually in the queue, because I have trouble reading past that which I don't understand. Hence, I've been reading Synergetics for over a decade, now, on faith that there's something of value there that I'll get if I only keep trying. I've also been mired in a biography of Ludwig Wittgenstein for a couple of years, but progress through that shows larger jumps at long intervals. I'd been struggling through some Rousseau for an extended period, but I finished that off three years ago when we got Abby. And of course there's Herodotus, which I've had for about fifteen years but only started denting a couple of years ago. Don't get me wrong; any of the above get shoved to the side when a new Neal Stephenson novel is purchased. Or reread.
We've still got the mayoral brouhaha here in Orlando, where it looks like Buddy Dyer's opponent is pushing for a runoff between himself and Dyer, while other candidates are vying for position as an interim mayor. Fortunately I live in Belle Isle, so I don't even get a vote in the matter. So, for me, a no-brainer. And please, no no-brainer jokes.
As the title says, open thread. I'll be in and out sporadically.
