In case you were in need of a new way to explain what the word "chutzpah" means, I'm here to help.

Yesterday (I'm told by a mother who witnessed it and my son's teacher), a father whose child had previously attended the preschool had a meeting at the shul. So he parked his car, dropped his kid off on the playground with the preschool classes, and went inside to this meeting.

Let me repeat that: Without talking to any adult or teacher, he dropped his child off on the playground and walked away, blithely assuming that someone would take care of the boy.

o_O I can't even.

Barak's teacher tells me she looked around, noticed a child who didn't belong there, and went off to find Dad. Dad was shocked, shocked I say, that there was a problem with this. Apparently he "figured it would be fine if he just played with the other kids for a while."

Leaving aside the humongous liability concerns for the preschool of a child who isn't registered and whose medical history and allergies they don't know...who drops their 5- or 6-year-old kid off on the playground without making sure there's an adult who knows they're there?

I mean, on Shabbat I might send Yael outside to play with a friend, but she's 8 and even so, I generally would go out with her or at least make sure there's an adult she knows around. It's common after school for someone to duck their head in, wave at someone they know, and say "Hey, can you watch Jonah for a minute while I go into the office?" But...just leaving your kid? Yikes.

I'm still all o_O over this and I first heard it yesterday afternoon. The mom who was telling me the story muttered quietly about how typical it was for parents and kids at this shul. And unfortunately that's true. So many entitled obnoxious kids and let me tell you...they get it from somewhere and it ain't the preschool teachers. Grrrr.

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I've got a brief break from work and my goal for the day is to finish my Blood Ties/Atlantis gen crossover fic. It's going to be, oh, about 6000 words and it's in need of a beta, since I've been working on it so long there could be all kinds of improbable things in there :) The story is mostly Blood Ties, so I need someone who knows that show. If you happen to know Atlantis as well, that would be nice, but not necessary.

Any takers? If I do manage to finish it, I'll send the fic soon and you can send it back whenever.

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Services yesterday were somewhat boring, but I wasn't there most of the time. I mostly chased Yael around the shul and the playground. Speaking of which...if I ever catch my kids acting like some of the kids I encountered yesterday...I might have to rethink my stance on spanking. Seriously, I don't mind that the kids were taking sand out of the sandbox and climbing on the basketball hoops, but I very much mind their reaction when I told them to stop.

I'm sorry, but the correct reaction to an adult telling you to stop is not to grin and keep doing it. Neither is it to say "Are you a teacher?" as if only teachers can tell you to behave. Neither is it to ignore me. And these were kids that are old enough to know better. Bunch of little overprivileged brats. I can't tell you how much I yearned to yell "You darn kids get off my lawn!" It doesn't help, of course, that all the other parents were standing at the other end of the yard ignoring what the kids were doing. ::eyeroll:: Which is, of course, why the kids knew they could get away with it.

BTW, I hope that if any of you catch my kids acting like overprivileged brats you will a) holler at them and b) let me know so that I can holler at them. I do not want any spoiled brats in my house.

In better news, I'm feeling much healthier and Avi is on his way to health. This seems to have been a quick cold, at least.

And I've posted my Yuletide fic :) I posted fic number 30, so I'm pleased with myself. The story isn't perfect, and given less stressful times, there are some other things I might have done with it, but on the whole I think my recipient will enjoy it and so will some other people and that's pretty much what Yuletide is all about.

I had planned to fiddle with it more, but I think I'd rather concentrate on other things and maybe see if I can pick up a pinch hit. If nothing else, now I can sit back and laugh at everyone else ;)

(C'mon, I wouldn't really do that! Much. At least not most of the time...)

Soon it's time to pick up Yael. We're making banana bread this afternoon, since I've got these two overripe bananas. Then maybe I'll coerce her into helping me clean up some toys downstairs. ::sigh:: We've not been strict enough about making her help with cleanup and now we're reaping what we sowed.

Yes, she does do good helping...when she's in the mood. But she needs to learn that sometimes it's time to clean up just because Mommy or Daddy say it is. I just have to remind myself that she's only 3 3/4 and we haven't exactly screwed her up for life...yet. ::snerk:: No, seriously, I have to remind myself that she's not too young to learn this, so it's a minor screwup on the parenting front!

Argl. I just had to turn down work, because I promised I'd save my time for Suddenly Sprockets! until the end of the year. Even though I'm unmotivated to do any work, I still have an ingrained hatred of saying no to work. I think it might be a freelancer thing. But between Suddenly Sprockets! and some other work that will be coming and Transformative Works and Cultures, which is coming like a freight train...I needed to say no.

Y'know how people lj-cut posts with triggery warnings when they're going to talk about rape or child sexual abuse or eating disorders? I think I'd like the news sites to start giving me warnings before they talk about dead children. ::shudders:: 'Cause apparently reading news articles about dead kids freaks me out and I'd like that to stop.

(Note: I'm not serious. My bad for reading the article after seeing the headline. Just like when I was pregnant and still read the Post series on pregnant women being murdered. ::coughs:: Yes, I'm serious about that.)

In all seriousness, I'm completely weirded out by reading about the toddler left in a car all day in Herndon. Reading something like this leaves most of my brain shrieking "You dumbass, how the [expletive deleted] could you forget your kid was in the car????" And then there's a tiny part of my brain that starts to worry that I might do this. That somehow I might forget Yael.

Which is crazy. In 3 1/2 years, I've never even come close to forgetting she was in the car. I have, three times IIRC, forgotten to buckle her up in her car seat, which is embarrassing, but in all cases, she reminded me before I got more than a block away! Anyway, my brain still insists on worrying about this remote possibility. Which is why I've written this out, because I figure writing it out will show me how ridiculous it is.

Now back to your regularly schedule wibbling :)

I recently bought a book I've had my eye on for a while, Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion, which is a series of essays by all kinds of people, including Richard Dawkins and Penn Jillette ::swoons::. It's not quite as good a book as I'd hoped, as many of the essays are more personal recollection and less practical suggestions.

However, some of the sections are very interesting and so I want to write a bit about what they have to say. More to get it clear in my mind than anything else.

Since I have a lot of new folks on my flist, I should take this opportunity to say, "Hi! I'm an atheist! And no, I'm not interested in debating the existence of God, Allah, or the Easter Bunny!" ::grin:: This post is me thinking through my fingers about morality and humanism and ethics and general good behavior. It's going to be a bit stream-of-consciousness, I suspect.

( Cut because many folks don't care and I suspect this is going to get longCollapse )

Okay, must work now...