Its All One Brownie

This morning, I made some brownies for a bake sale that the band (and color guard!) boosters are having. They came okay okay, given that they were supposed to be gooey, but I have to admit, I was not thrilled with them. Too loose. Also, they didn't quite fit in the tray that I was intending to use, so I ended up putting the extras on a plate. Of course, I ate some of that, and when she came home, my daughter glommed onto a chunk, too. A little bit later, I asked her if she had any homework to do, and as it happens, she does. She said she'd get right on it, and to ease the pain, I asked if she'd like the rest of what was on the plate. She immediately came into the kitchen, grabbed it, and said This had better be one brownie, because I'm taking it all! Kiddo, I said, trust me on this -- its all one brownie.

I liked that conversation for a couple of reasons. One is, I try to have non-stress conversations with her as a way to continue the baseline of communications we've had for years. I think that there are and will be plenty of times when we just don't agree, and maybe don't even understand each other, so its important to me to at least try to keep the quiet times, too. Was it actually one brownie? As far as she was concerned, it certainly was -- and thats good enough for me.

I'm about halfway through the book on Strengths, and I'm thinking about communications, and insight. I'm not a particularly insightful guy, which ties in with my not really feeling as if I need other people. I do, I know that, but in a weird way I don't want to acknowledge that, for most people. Some, certainly. Not many. I read books like this because I need all the help I can get, in that regard; I'm also reading it because SusieJ recommended it, and I find her to be an insightful and interesting writer who's got a lot on the ball when it comes to dealing with kids and families. So when I hit a part where the author's talking about listening to kids, and really listening, not being Um-hmm..., it makes sense to me. Then she goes into some New Age stuff (she says its not, but you tell me: when you ask a kid questions and your answers are all 'I hear you saying that you're unhappy' ' Why do you think you like doing that?', is that New Age? I think so. It may be valid, but its NA) which tended to lose me -- but right now she's talking about putting pieces together from multiple conversations with the same kid, concluding from one conversation about the kid's fort when she was young, and another about liking to work on a sailboat, restoring it, and wondering about the ocean, that perhaps this kid would like to be an astronaut. And I think Damn, I wish I could do that kind of thing!!! While at the same time I wonder: is this one conversation out of ten that worked, or out of a thousand? Because everyone can hit the ball sometimes.... the people who can hit it more often, they're the ones I want to listen to.

But I'll keep reading.