She did it! NaNoWriMo!

Well, it's November 30. NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) ends in an hour and a half.

Me? I gave up after the first week. Too busy, although I got quite a bit written in that time.

But Madison...she had a goal of 7500 words. That's about 25 double-spaced pages, to you uninitiated.

She worked on it steadily. All herself. I hadn't read a word.

But then the Thanksgiving holiday got in the way. As of this morning, the LAST DAY, she had under 6000 words. And piano lesson, and bowling, and viola lesson, and karate.

My competitive and determined girl didn't like this one bit. I gave her the "day off" from regular school (aside from those outside lessons) and she wrote every spare minute. And then...

After karate, she still had a thousand or so words to go on The Storm Lords of Saturn.

I offered my services. My fingers, actually. Because one thing I can do is type awfully fast.

"But I don't want you to know the story," she protested.

"No worries. I won't listen. I can think about something else while you're dictating."

She was skeptical. How could I not listen, and listen, at the same time? It took her a while to get going, but then the words just started spinning out of her. I really wasn't listening, not critically, anyway. But at one point, I laughed, because she had dictated something funny and quite artful.

"You ARE listening to the story," she accused.

"Well, yes, because it just got so darned interesting," I said. She grinned happily, proudly. She didn't mind me listening anymore. She even started discussing the plot with me. We had a grand old time.

And just ten minutes ago, she finished the challenge. The novel itself isn't finished, not by a long shot. She wants to keep writing and writing. But she pasted in what she had into her NaNoWriMo account. 7511 words. Up came a big YOU WON page, with an inspiring message that she immediately printed out to keep forever.

And, she bestowed on me the ultimate compliment: a new nickname.

Mommy-Bot.

I'll keep that forever, too.

Sneak peek of new podcasts!

Today, Madison and Ella started their new podcast series, in which they interview children's authors, from the kid's perspective.

Was this their idea? Well, no, not exactly. Just before the Book Festival a few weeks ago, the girls had just "cut their first CD" for their singing duo group that they call "DS2," which also includes interviews with each other. I was talking about that with a few local kids' authors at the dinner following the Festival, and the idea to have them interview authors just sort of sprang to all of our minds at once. I went home and put the question to the girls, and they were very enthusiastic.

So their first author interview was today. It was with Charles Noland (whose real name is Dan Beerse), one of the guys who came up with the idea with me that night. We had to get used to calling him "Mr. Noland." Anyway, Dan was honored to be the first. He came over today and recorded the interview in Madison's office-slash-recording studio (a good microphone hooked up to her computer with WavePad recording. Dan was totally patient and supportive as we all got into a groove of asking questions; he was the perfect First Interviewee. The unedited version is about 20 minutes or so; I anticipate that Madison will put all of the audio chunks together and edit them down to about 10-15 minutes.

During the course of the interview, I remembered that one of Dan's books is called Saving Christmas. So I had Madison do a separate little interview with him at the end, just about that book -- because, 'tis the season, you know, and Dan wants to sell books. And I of course live (at least partly) to promote local children's authors.

This evening, Madison edited that segment down to 3 minutes, added a little intro about her podcast series, and saved it all as an MP3 file.

Here it is. Make sure your speakers are on!

I'll release it officially tomorrow in my e-newsletter.

If anyone has an idea of a good name for a KidsOutAndAbout.com podcast series that is of kids interviewing children's authors, please let me know. I hope to find a good name soon. (It needn't be confined to my kids doing the interviewing, by the way...if you have kids who want to record interviews with kids' authors, do so and send 'em my way!)

The Fates, and programming

The Health Gods were not listening very carefully when I told them to bless us with illness early LAST week if they were going to at all this holiday season.

Ella is sick. Sore throat, and a very croupy-sounding cough. But maybe it's not the flu. She had a miserably congested night last night, which was no picnic for me, either.

The rest of us are still feeling okay. Keeping fingers crossed that Ella's the only one. No bowling for the girls this afternoon (who wants to infect the rest of the bowling alley!) and Ella will stay home instead of go to karate this evening.

In brighter news, though, the girls have been going gangbusters using a free programming language developed at MIT, called Scratch. Madison used it all day yesterday, and today she showed Ella how to do it. Great for schoolwork! Logic! Math! reading! Thinking skills! School!

Remember, she's still so young

I sometimes have to remind myself that Ella is still a little kid, and not rush her into being bigger or more mature than she is.

She happened upon an old "Wee Sing" video, and this time paid attention to the fact that there are more that exist than the two that we have. So yesterday we found some at the library, just for her. Even though they're really for preschool-kindergarten and she is 8, she has been enjoying them. I guess if she were at school and talked about this, she might be ridiculed for liking "baby stuff." But I so want both the girls to be free to be *who they are*--and so this is a good experience for me. Just because Ella is singing in the Messiah in a few weeks, for example (the Bach Children's Chorus performs in this each year and they're on stage for 3-and-a-half hours), doesn't mean she doesn't still enjoy being a child. I need to remember to give them the options to enjoy exactly what they enjoy.

I think we'll go back and read some excellent picture books. The language in those is often much more sophisticated than in the chapter books she's reading now, anyway.

Leonids

It's 3:30 am. It would be great if the Leonid Meteor Shower would actually show up.

If it did, I'd wake up the kids.

Maybe it's the fact that my only good window faces east and northeast. But the internet won't give me any good info about where Leo is right now.

Recent busy-ness

I think I'm going to have to give up on the idea of 50,000 words for my novel this month. Besides, my novel won't end up being 50,000 words. But I'm woefully behind, at only about 7500 words, due partly to last week being devoted so heavily to the Rochester Children's Book Festival, and this week to catching up. I had a booth there to let folks know about KidsOutAndAbout.com. The booth is always 6 hours of nonstop helium balloon blowing-up-and-tying, but it's a great deal of fun. My kids get the biggest kick out of being The Kids Who Use The Helium Tank And Give Out Balloons (you can see the other kids envying them). And it's mostly a big annual ego trip for me because those parents who aren't busy signing up for the email list there are busy telling us how much they love the web site and getting the e-newsletter.

My goal is that within 2 years I'm going to be inside the main hall, behind a desk piled with my books, and hire someone else to be the face of KOA with my kids and get sore fingers blowing and tying balloons.

This is me and my colleague June (who is going to help me with the administrative work of expanding KOA) and Madison and Ella at the booth.

Click moment on fractions

Ella has been feeling quite fractious over her fractions, with little reason for it. She said she had the sense that she's going too slowly, but that's not actually true, she's progressing just fine.

But yesterday, she had a major CLICK moment where she understood, really understood, how fractions are related to division and multiplication. She got the "breaking it up into parts" idea, finally. I think she got that glimmer that "A Whole" is not one static thing, that the definition can switch depending on the thing you're investigating.

Take a pizza, that's easy, and divide it into 8 parts. Each piece is 1/8 of a whole. Ella has never had a problem with this.

But it wasn't until we *started* with the parts (in this case, a drawing of a bunch of fruits and vegetables...carrots, apples, and pears), made them into one big "group" in our minds, and then identified each type of thing as a fraction of the big group, that she really got it.

I LOVE that startled look on their faces when they finally say "Oh!" And then that gratified, proud, slow smile that follows the exclamation, as they *realize* they understand something that they didn't a moment before. I live for that. Nothing else like it in the world.

39 Clues, Part 6

The new 39 Clues book, Book 6, came out today.

It wasn't at the libraries yet. So I gave in to Madison's entreaties and bought it for her after I went out to vote. I mean, I can think of a lot more indulgent parental indulgences.

We arrived at Barnes & Noble at 5:40. The book was $11.36 with the B&N Member's discount. She finished the 206-pager at 7:45, including the interruption for dinner. She said it was among the better ones in the series. I was glad, because that's a pretty high price-per-reading-minute. Made me wish J.K. Rowling was coming out with another one; at least it would hold her for 12 hours or so.

NaMoWriMo Day 3 part 1

I am in the middle of Day 3.

I just did a little spreadsheet math to see the daily count of where I need to be, if I'm going to do this in 27 days. (30 minus our trip.)

And let's just pretend that I'm going to write on Thanksgiving and the few days that follow while los Cubanos are here for Thanksgiving, because I'm not sure how I'm going to succeed at this, anyway, without a little self-deception.

Day 1: 1852
Day 2: 3704
Day 3: 5556
Day 4: 7408
Day 5: 9260
Day 6: 11112
Day 7: 12964
Day 8: 14816
Day 9: 16668
Day 10: 18520
Day 11: 20372
Day 12: 22224
Day 13: 24076
Day 14: 25928
Day 15: 27780
Day 16: 29632
Day 17: 31484
Day 18: 33336
Day 19: 35188
Day 20: 37040
Day 21: 38892
Day 22: 40744
Day 23: 42596
Day 24: 44448
Day 25: 46300
Day 26: 48152
Day 27: 50004

I am in the middle of Day 3 and only at 3495 words. Yikeroo. How do people do this and have, you know, jobs?

If you answer, I won't be able to look you in the eye, my head will still be gazing down at this screen...

Update as of 8pm: 5581 words.

Wow, this program works.

National Novel Writing Month

November is National Novel Writing Month; there is actually an official organization called NaNoWriMo, which challenges writers to write a 50,000-word novel in the 30 days of November.

Madison is participating with me, although those in the Young Writers program get to choose their own word goal. Madison chose 7500, which works out to 250 words per day. We're taking time each day to sit together, just the two of us, and blam out the novels.

Madison is doing great. She's working on a book called The Storm Lords of Saturn (think I have a fantasy reader?). She's already at 350 words.

I'm doing a revenge novel, of sorts -- I had vowed, at the age of 9, "someday" to write a book with this title: My Father the Health Food Nut. Now, I'm not actually writing my story--my own experiences wouldn't make for a very satisfying plot. But that's okay, it's going to be profoundly satisfying to ME to have carried through on a 31-year-old mission, even if the book never sees actual ink. Here is my synopsis:

11-year-old Georgia, tired of her father's health food fads and obsessive control of her diet, starts her own "organic revolution," patterning it on the original War for Independence.

One's NaNoWriMo account keeps track of the number of words--you paste it in each night and it updates your count. I'm at 2827 and, boy, are Madison and I having fun. Which is, after all, the point.

I'm going to update my word count here each day; it'll help to keep me motivated. I'm going to lose 3 days in the middle of the month for a trip, so I'll have to work extra hard to get there.

It's been a while since I engaged on this level

To my surprise, I've found myself embroiled in a creationist-evolutionist argument on, of all things, a *birding* blog. Most of my life does not involve engaging people in these types of arguments; obviously, I have my own convictions, but I'm better at, and have more interest in, doing other work than in arguing philosophy. And others do this much better than I. But I just couldn't help it today. I encountered the "you who believe in science have just as much faith as those who believe in the God of Creation" argument and just couldn't resist.

This guy said:

Deb: evidence? objective reasoned evidence? Scientifically verifiable evidence? Evolution is Science!? It all comes down in the end to epistemology. It always does. How do we know what we know? What are our standards for evidence, and how do we assemble evidence into reasonable, working definitions of truth?

I would argue that there are some scientists, even evolutionary scientists, and an great abundance of “scientifically minded modern people” who believe in evolution on exactly the same grounds. They have no direct experience of evolution in action. They have not done a single experiment to verify the truth of the theory, nor do they know anyone who has...

I couldn't help it; I couldn't just let this one go. I had already written my 1250 words for my novel (I'm doing National Novel Writing Month...50,000 words in the 30 days of November) and it's not like the laundry wasn't waiting. But...

Of course, Stephen, you’re right, it all comes down to epistemology.

How DO we know what we know? (Remember, knowledge–THINKING something is true–is different from what people call FAITH. I don’t know what the epistemological mechanism of “faith” is, or how it is distinguished from “make believe,” but it certainly isn’t KNOWLEDGE. If it were, then you and others would simply call it “knowledge,” not faith.)

I will answer the question you are actually asking, then, here. Leaving aside questions of faith, how do we know what we know?

The answer is that the only way that human beings can know anything is by the evidence of our senses. Our senses give us the primary data that our minds test and organize. Everything we know all ultimately comes back to sense data, and to our cognitive processing–the noticing of similarities and differences to create abstract concepts–of that sense data. Is something true? We check the evidence of our senses, and we check to verify that others are having the same experience.

When I say to someone that a certain thing is TRUE, I can only pound my fist and declare that to be the case if I have the objective evidence to which I can refer the person…evidence to which they have access through their senses, and reasoning based on the evidence of their senses.

No reputable scientist says the following: “Well, I BELIEVE this is true, but I can’t demonstrate conclusive evidence that would satisfy YOU, Deb. You can’t replicate my experience. But believe it’s true anyway, Deb. And respect me for it.” No, to the contrary: Scientists who have become established as knowing what they’re talking about have generally gotten that reputation BECAUSE they welcome honest inquiry into the topic, and because they hold out their claims as independently verifiable. They welcome validation from others willing to test the conclusion, and they welcome information from others trying but failing to replicate their conclusions. And, if they are honest, they welcome evidence refuting their conclusions.

That is, the way to learn things that are true about the world is through honest investigation of the natural world: I employ my mind to process the evidence of my senses. I trust scientists who employ the proper scientific method for the same reason, because they are engaged in an objectively verifiable quest for the truth. I do not trust the claims of people who do not welcome independent investigation, who do not hold their claims up to scrutiny.

This is why it is different to have provisional trust for a scientist’s claim than to trust religionists. The scientist always seeks to refine his understanding of the natural world *by examining the facts*, and testing, testing, testing. Religionists may be questioning, but faith (which seems to be commonly defined as “holding something to be true in the absence of verifiable fact”) precludes testing, indeed, precludes the very idea of proof.

If I encounter contrary evidence to something I think is true, then, I investigate further. And what do I investigate? The facts. How do I encounter facts? By seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, or tasting them. What else are facts? Abstractions that are generated as a result of cognitive processing of things that are experienced with the senses.

Emotions are facts, too, in the sense that it is a fact that unthinking people irritate me. But facts do NOT come into being by humans imagining them, or wishing for them, or feeling them. My irritation at someone is not *evidence* that they’re wrong. (If someone said to me: “How do you know we’re not all molecules in the spit of a giant dragon, Deb?” I can’t say to them: “Because the idea irritates me.”) Similarly, Stephen’s deep desire for there to be a Spirit in the Sky with a Plan is not evidence that one exists. Nor does the conviction of millions of people that something is true constitute evidence. Ask Gallileo.

I'm pretty sure he won't say, "Oh, wow, Deb, I get it now, thanks so much, thank heavens you've set me straight." But I still had to do it.

Madison won a little poetry contest

Rochester-area poet Joe Sottile has a monthly poetry contest for kids.
Madison won October's contest with a poem about Halloween.

Joe just posted it on his web site.

Madison is happy.

Joe doesn't get a lot of submissions. He'd love more.

A have a violist

Madison started taking viola lessons a few weeks ago.

It might be startling how quickly she's picked this up if it weren't for the fact that she already plays piano and some flute.

She loves it.

Bonne idée

C'est vrai, une bonne idée.

Thanks to Sue for the costume.

Donating their brains to science

Ella and Madison are really excited because next week, they're going to be subjects in a brain scan test at the University of Rochester's neurodevelopmental lab.

They get to play a computer game while they're getting an MRI of their brain. Isn't that COOL?

What's more, the study then loads them up with gifts after: Each girl will also get a small toy/puzzle from the treasure chest, a larger toy/book/game from the prize shelf, a lab t-shirt, and a picture of her own personal brain.

And a lot of information about what the researchers are doing, and how the brain works.

And... $50. Each.

They were excited even before they found out about the $50. Now, they really can't wait until next Thursday. I don't think they've ever had that much money at one time, before. We just watched the movie that the lab made to show them how the whole MRI thing works.

This should be so interesting.

More poetry

Ella wrote this poem yesterday:

I Am a Snuggly Heater

I am something I like to call a Snuggly Heater.
And the reason I think I am one
Is because sometimes at night I snuggle with my mom
And when we wake up in the morning
She says that I heated her up all night.
And that's why I say
I am a Snuggly Heater.

This week's poem memorization

We decided it was time, for the sake of cultural literacy, to have the girls memorize something from the Bible. The 23rd Psalm was a natural choice.

Just now, to see how well Ella knows the poem, David prompted:

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want..."

Ella didn't miss a beat, and continued: "...to say this poem any more."

The "Getting Embarrassed" phase

Ella has leaped full-force into a phase where she gets embarrassed.

Fortunately, she's not yet at the stage at which *I* embarrass her. (Frankly, I think that one is quite a distance in the future.) No, this stage is characterized by her embarrassment at just about everything that has to do with herself.

Examples: She's embarrassed about the sound of her own voice on tape. She's embarrassed to stumble over a word when she's reading. She's embarrassed on behalf of the villain, sometimes, when Columbo is homing in on the truth. She's embarrassed for me to see her when she's singing in a small group at chorus rehearsal. She's embarrassed at praise. She's embarrassed at love scenes in a movie. She's embarrassed at going first for something in a group.

I think this is a real sign of maturity, a new awareness of herself as someone who simultaneously acts in the world AND doesn't really know what she's doing yet. The second half of that sentence is the new bit. It's the emergence of the "is this the right thing in this situation? Damn, I don't have enough experience to know" filter. I remember the embarrassment that goes with this emerging sense, and the trapped feeling of additional embarrassment about not being able to handle the embarrassment smoothly.

As Ella has gotten older, I watch her starting to project ahead farther into the future. She is starting to realize how far she has to go, I think, before she can be confident in what she's doing, and I think this is part of what is making her skittish and embarrassed. She used to be supremely confident about just about everything, and that's no longer the case. I suspect she implicitly realizes that the standards of behavior won't always be simply externally set by parents; increasingly, she is going to have to start identifying those standards herself. She's not sure how to do this. It really is a very new filter...how to make sure you do the important things right, and how to shake off mistakes quickly for the things you do wrong, at the same time as learning from them.

Although this is difficult for a mother, I actually have decided that I don't want to rob Ella too quickly of the embarrassment, for a couple of reasons. First, because it is *hers*. It's her genuine emotion. I want her to feel what she feels for her own reasons, not because I tell her. If she decides to change her reaction, I want her to do so because she sees that it's reasonable to do so, not simply under pressure from me to slam it back.

Also, it's very useful as a kid to have the regular experience of doing the right thing *in spite of* one's emotions about it. For example, Ella should talk to me about certain things even if it makes her embarrassed to do so, *because* she shouldn't have to deal with things alone at her age (and because she should get in good practice for this when she's an adolescent). It's okay to be embarrassed about whatever it is, I tell her, but you can't let that get in your way of getting it done, you can't let it wilt you. So these small embarrassments can be very useful that way. This way, she both gets validated for the embarrassment ("I remember how hard that was for me, too...") but encouraged to push through it.

Another reason not to slam back the embarrassment is because it can be an extremely useful barometer for helping one do the right thing. Suppressing the emotion of embarrassment at minor infractions could lead to evasion as a mental habit, or unconcern with ethics entirely. I don't think there is much danger of this with Ella, but people *should* be embarrassed about embarrassing things; that's entirely rational. Not pleasant, but rational. Life is not always a bowl of cherries, and age 8 is the perfect time to start dealing with that, in minor and unimportant ways.

So as I've been talking with Ella about these things, my main strategy hasn't been to wipe away her embarrassment. Sometimes she won't tell me for a little while...she needs me to "make" her tell what's on her mind. That's fine, I do that, just patiently smiling and warm, telling her that it will feel a lot better after she has talked with me about it. (It does, too...that's true.)

Second, because I really do vividly remember exactly what this experience was like, I tell her that. Just hearing about how I understand really helps her. Hearing about how everyone else feels this way, too, especially the good people, helps her too. And hearing about how it will eventually just go away and she won't have this experience also helps.

Always, I assure Ella that no matter what, if things ever get hard, she always has us. It doesn't matter if she's 8 or 14 or 40, we can help her get through whatever has to be faced. Sometimes she literally crawls into my arms at that point and buries her beautiful little face in my shoulder. If she hasn't already told me what's worrying her, that usually works.

To be honest, there have been a couple of times that Ella was embarrassed so needlessly that I was able to tell her easily that this can be shaken off very fast. "Oh, you're embarrassed about that there was a grass stain on your coat? Really, Ella, you needn't be...no one gave it another thought, seriously, don't let it get in your way." And then I focus her attention elsewhere.

Unintentional consequences of my school stories

I am not sure what to make of my sensitive little girl Ella.

I showed the girls today some current stories that show the stupidity of "zero tolerance" policies at schools: of the Eagle Scout in upstate NY who was suspended for having a knife locked in the boy scout kit in his car, parked on school grounds, and also the story of the 6-year-old who excitedly brought his new Boy Scout utensil kit so he could eat lunch with it, and was consequently suspended.

I heard a whimper and glanced over at Ella. I was shocked to see the lower lip quivering and the eyes filling with tears at the idea of these injustices happening at school. I hastened to add that the parents of these two boys did what any sensible parent living in a free society would do: alert the media and let the truth of the story shine the light on these idiots. She felt a little better, but still not good. She asked me not to tell her any more.

It's a good thing I didn't tell her about the junior high school girl being strip-searched on suspicion of bringing Advil to school. (That one still really, really rankles me, partly because I can imagine myself being paralyzed if it had happened to me at the age of 13. I WAS one of those evildoers who brought ibuprofen to school, so it could have been me in that position.)

It is fortunate that Ella will not ever have to go to school, because I think I've--totally unintentionally--made her regard the idea with absolute fear and loathing. I guess she's a little young for these ideas. I don't mind her loathing arbitrary rules, but she doesn't need to loathe the idea of school, per se.

Thank goodness my children will never, NEVER have to put up with the crap those other kids must. (And if someone ever tried to hand it to them, boy would such people have some trouble on their hands. They'd have to deal with both me AND David.)

I just asked Madison why she thought Ella got so upset, and Madison told me that Ella was afraid something like that would happen to her at some point. "Doesn't she know that it never will?" I asked. "Daddy and I would never let that happen. And if it did, they'd regret it really quick."

"I don't think *I'll* ever be able to stand up to anyone," she said kind of mournfully.

"Are you kidding me?" I was surprised. "Madison, you're only ten. Trust me, you're being raised by David Ross. You have a tongue like a whip. When you're an adult, there will be none better."

She looked doubtful.

"Seriously," I continued. "But then again, you don't have to worry about standing up for yourself necessarily. We've got your back."

"As long as I want?"

"As long as you want."

Unfortunate homeschoolng math moment

I was working on math with Ella this morning, somewhat late because one of David's students had visited for a few hours at breakfast.

Ella knew this was going to be a shortened schoolwork day because of our visitor and because bowling is early this afternoon.

Nevertheless, there she was, whining at me shortly before lunch. "I wish I only had to do ONE page instead of TWO pages."

I looked at her, annoyed, and said, "You know, someday just for kicks I think I'll give you a taste of a REAL school day. We'll start at 8am, we'll end at 3, I'll give various lectures and you can sit still and listen, you'll do your work, and then afterward you can do your homework. How's that sound?"

She burst into tears.

Really not my proudest moment.