Please Stop Making That Dreadful Sound - That's Six Words, Too

Do you all know about the six words you're supposed to say to your child? To my surprise, these six words are not, "get it yourself; I am busy." Rather, according to the Hands Free Mama blog those words are, "I love to watch you play," which is what you should tell your child after a sporting event or activity. Rather than criticizing or critiquing your child's performance, you should just say, "I love to watch you play," and leave it at that. This frees a child from feeling the pressure to perform to a particular standard to please her parents. Of course, reading the blog left me feeling like I was not performing to a particular standard to please my children. What does it say about me that my list of six-word phrases for my children would include: "take the bag off your head," "please stop making that dreadful sound," "shut the door, I hate mosquitos," and "doing that might lead to death?" Clearly, it says that I will not be winning the same mother-of-the-year award that I expect the Hands Free Mama will be receiving.

I totally agree with the premise that kids don't need the pressure of feeling like they're going to disappoint their parents if they don't play well. I've seen my share of parents who berate their kids during a game, and I can only imagine that the berating is worse in private. I am totally on-board with not screaming at your kid about that ball he dropped. My problem with the blog is that Hands Free Mama makes me feel like I should be sobbing with pure joy watching my children's sporting events even if I've driven two hours to get to the game and the game has been called after 45 minutes because we're losing 24-0. If I have to be honest, sometimes I don't love to watch them play. Sometimes I'd just rather be at home reading a book.

Omens

I have been trying to read Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. It's a fictional account of the life of Thomas Cromwell who was an advisor to Henry VIII during the time he was trying to ditch his first wife so that he could marry Anne Boleyn. It's slow going, especially because every so often I decide that I need to spend an hour on Wikipedia "researching" things like how many women foolishly agreed to marry Henry VIII (six), whether Anne Boleyn actually had six fingers (probably not), how Oliver Cromwell was related to Thomas Cromwell (great-great-great nephew), and why Elvis Costello wrote a song about Oliver Cromwell (it's about British imperialism). Oh, Wikipedia, why I can't quit you!

One thing I have found interesting in Wolf Hall is how in the Middle Ages, people saw omens in everything. I guess when you don't have a much scientific knowledge, you look for guidance wherever you can find it. Someone catches two big fish: An omen. A dead bird falls in a chimney: An omen. Thomas Cromwell didn't believe in omens, and I'm pretty sure I don't either, but if I did, yesterday was full of them:

Dispatches from the Diamond

Friday night I had my first taste of a little league baseball tournament and I was in people-watching heaven. I have a minor obsession with subcultures and hardcore baseball families fed that obsession perfectly. I'm not talking about people whose kids play baseball. I'm talking about people whose entire identity is little league baseball. They wear shirts like this:

And shoes like this:

And get this pedicure: