Not a whole lot of excitement at home lately, which is why it's mostly been book reviews.
We had a nice New Year's Eve, with pretty much the same lineup as last year. Me, Jen, Lily, Jen's mom, my Grammy, our nephew. We watched movies, Chris played games, everybody ate junk and Lily conked out fifteen minutes before the ball dropped. (We had canceled our cable but found a stream of the ball dropping online.)
I was proud of Lily for a couple reasons over this past week. One is that she said Superman is her favorite superhero. Yay! Superman rocks. She didn't want to read Kingdom Come with me, though. Pity. It's a beautiful book. Maybe when she's older.
I'll cover it in more detail some day soon, but there are some elements I really enjoy in the story, chiefly among them the idea that it's possible for anyone to learn from his or her mistakes and to move beyond them. I didn't really get the extent of Magog's redemption until I read that article above and looked for the actions described.
But back to Lily and superheroes. She told me that if she were a superhero, her name would be "Super Princess Lily" and her powers would be "saving people" and "bringing them back to life if they die". This death thing is getting out of hand. Jen told me yesterday that she got through a day with Lily without telling her that two people were dead. I didn't think that was all that remarkable, because I often manage to get through the day without telling her that two people were dead until she told me that Lily had started asking questions about Michael Jackson after recognizing one of his songs. (I don't know which I find more impressive, the fact that she was able to place the song or the fact that she actually used the word "recognized".) Jen managed to deflect both the questions about Michael Jackson and her cookie recipe from her great-grandmother. So, go Jen!
The other reason I was proud of Lily is that she said, "Daddy, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but your bathroom is very messy and you should clean it up a little."
I'm pleased, not because she thinks my bathroom is messy, but how she could phrase that in a respectful fashion that nonetheless makes her meaning clear. For kids, and some adults, that's not always easy. It reminds me of the time the Autistic Robot gave me something for a quick review. I worked on it in MS Word's editing mode, and was surprised to find that I made 112 changes when I was done. I can offer criticism, and I can be nice, but I can seldom do both at once without great effort. I'm pleased to see that that this seems to come more easily to Lily. I'm proud of the kid she's becoming.
I'm less pleased about other things. I was finishing up a reading of the Little Mermaid and Jen was in the room listening to us. I mentioned that Eric and Ariel only dated for three days before they got married. So we asked her how long people should date before they got married. Lily thought about it for a moment and said "One or two days."
Then she went on to tell us that she loves two boys in her class and she will marry one of them after dating them for the appropriate wooing period of up to two days. They each dance funny and don't get many time outs and sometimes they pull their eyelids down to look like monsters.
By staggering coincidence, that's exactly what I'm looking for in a future son-in-law!
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