But I read it, then I wrote it, I read it, then I wrote it again

[sovay]

Rabbit, rabbit! At least this year it didn't snow for April Fool's Day. Apparently that's tomorrow.

I am not surprised that I felt more ambivalently about this Easter than any year I can remember; Christmas was much the same. But as far back as I can remember, my family has always made Easter baskets for friends and family and always baked a glazed ham with cloves and pineapple and so I spent this afternoon with my parents and rushthatspeaks, celebrating Easter in that capacity, and it was good. My mother had made a flourless hazelnut cake for dessert, because it's Pesach. And then frosted it with Peeps, because Easter.

My father brought a copy of Jill Twiss and EG Keller's A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo (2018) and I can recommend it as both a political riposte and a really sweet children's book. It's funny and cute and inclusive and can be enjoyed by people who do not care about political caricatures, of which there is a quite good one, although for purposes of the story it could be any obnoxious, unqualified authority figure who is quite rightly voted out of the meadow: "Stink bugs are temporary. Love is forever." Very Easter-appropriate, too.

On that front, selkie has just persuaded me that I need to see the Jesus Christ Superstar just now finishing up on NBC, because Brandon Victor Dixon looks astonishing as Judas and nobody told me Ben Daniels was playing Pilate. The Bible in its leatherbound edition, indeed.

Comments

[selkie]

I am a good, sweet, innocent, pure, uncorrupted person who does not have a leather kink a mile and a half wide.

And I share.

It took my mind off how terribly nervous I am for Child's spring draft tomorrow night. "I won't do lazy skate, I'll do fun hard work skate," she says, but I'm afraid it's going to be nineteen pudgy, bratty boys and Child.

[sovay]

And I share.

It's the holiday spirit!

"I won't do lazy skate, I'll do fun hard work skate," she says, but I'm afraid it's going to be nineteen pudgy, bratty boys and Child.

Can I hope that she crushes them? That can come under the heading of "fun."

[selkie]

You can hope, but the thing is, she just won't. She's the kind of person who's aware she has more than the usual skill/an easier time, so she hangs back a leg so that other kids can feel good about themselves.

A child of MINE. *sobs*

She never uses the guillotine we bought her, either.

[sovay]

She's the kind of person who's aware she has more than the usual skill/an easier time, so she hangs back a leg so that other kids can feel good about themselves.

Can you make her understand that most people will not feel good about themselves if they realize the other person's holding back to let them look better? Like, if this is an overdrive of compassion rather than a cleverly diguised self-esteem issue (she absolutely deserves to let coaches and judges and audience see how good she is), that's the best way I can think of tackling it. It does no one any favors, including her opponents and herself.

[selkie]

She is so genuinely kind and empathetic it would make anyone barf. She has anxiety about letting people down, but not ever really on the ice (or in any sport in which her primary limiting factor is her own skill). I will talk to her in this sort of vein tonight, though, as I don't think we'd approached it as "Well, that's like lying." (I'm paraphrasing. But. Child HATES a liar.)

[sovay]

I will talk to her in this sort of vein tonight, though, as I don't think we'd approached it as "Well, that's like lying." (I'm paraphrasing. But. Child HATES a liar.)

It is like lying! She is misrepresenting her own abilities and giving other people an inaccurate idea of theirs. Nobody wins, except on some level probably the patriarchy.

I sympathize with your child. It was incredibly difficult for me to learn that it was rude to correct people even when they were wrong about something not very important because they were still wrong. I am still twitchy about it. I have a terrible baked-in case of "someone is wrong on the internet or right in front of my face." This is not helping anything with the present administration, of course.