Light and Momentary

That's one accommodating kindergarten teacher.

Stella holds up a B hand at dinner. She explains. "This means I need to use the bathroom."

She returns shortly. She holds up a D hand. "This means I need a drink." She sips some water.

A few minutes later she holds up a W hand. "This means I need a walrus."

Pushback on my pushback

Remember when I earnestly enjoined you all to Push Back? 

Well.

I was delighted to learn that the 9yo's soccer practice would be at the park closest to our home. He's been going to this park since he was born, y'all. Do you see the little tiny newborn feet in this picture? Right after he finished nursing, I picked my postpartum self up from that chair and went to this park with my boys. Occasionally Pete will keep me company on a run: he'll bike ahead while I run behind him, and pause at the water fountains for me to catch up. When we do that? We go right by the soccer practice park.

He's not going to get lost on the way home, is what I'm telling you. It's seven-tenths of a mile from our house, along streets that are well-traveled but not too trafficky.

When the coach emailed to tell us that practice would be at Neighborhood Park, I wrote right back to say, "Hurray! You just made my life so much easier! Pete will be biking or walking most of the time."

As it turns out, the coach thinks the park is too far from our house for Pete to walk. He told Pete today that he couldn't walk home until Elwood and I signed a waiver. He drove Pete home.

Also as it turns out, one of Pete's teammates used to live a hair closer to Neighborhood Park than we do. His mom thinks it's too far for Pete to walk too.

(Remember those kids in These Happy Golden Years who walked, like, 6 miles in the snow to get to Laura's school? Wasn't one of them 11ish? Clearly no one told their parents about the hazards of letting your children walk.)

There are a few different ways a person could handle this situation. There's the Shootout Strategy (not my cup of tea), in which a person might fire off an email to the soccer coach saying, "Since the evidence is unequivocal that it's considerably more dangerous for my kid to ride in your car than to walk on the sidewalk, you'd be better off worrying about waivers for driving other people's kids around." There's the Handwringing Strategy (more my style, probably equally ineffective), in which a person might explain carefully that parents who spend their children's early years insisting that the kids can't do anything unsupervised wind up with 20-something and 30-something children living at home. THIS IS ABOUT THE FUTURE OF AMERICA, Mr. Soccer Coach, so it's your DUTY to look those uncomfortable feelings in the face and SUCK THEM UP.

The approach that seems most likely to succeed is the Low-Key Strategy, in which we touch base with the coach at the game on Saturday or the practice on Monday and say calmly, "It's a really high priority for us that our kids learn how to get around their town. We're confident that Pete can walk home safely." Maybe we touch base with the neighborhood mom as well, although that feels a little more fraught to me. But I can do it. I will do it, because it's important.

I might not tell them, though, that we expect our kindergartner to walk more than 6 miles a week cheerfully, getting herself to and from school and ballet (with a brother to keep her company). There's only so much pushback this particular pusher-backer can handle.

(Probably I should make a category for these posts, since I seem to keep writing them. I will have to call it Dear America: You Have Lost Your Collective Mind; Go Find It (And Leave Me Alone While You Search).)

Verdict

The panel agrees with Mme. Beurre-Noisette that Escoffier's words belong to Escoffier and cannot be quoted without attribution. They are following a very reasonable course of action and they said not a single word about Madame's little procedural oops. She's glad that's over.

 

More or less

Once upon a time in France there was a pastry chef. We will call her Mme. Beurre-Noisette, because beurre noisette is delicious and we are in a hurry. After years in a restaurant kitchen, she took a job teaching students to make pastry.

Mme. Beurre-Noisette loved almost everything about teaching. She loved to watch the students who came in unable to tell a batch of pâte brisée from a gob of wallpaper paste turn into students who could make pâte sablée with one hand and pâte sucrée with the other. 

Occasionally, though, some of the students still seemed a little confused about the wallpaper paste.

One such student turned in a required essay to Mme. Beurre-Noisette. Initially, Mme. B-N was struck by the high quality of the the writing. Who knew the student's understanding of the chemistry of pâte à foncer was so subtle? Who would have thought--

With a thud, Mme. B-N's enthusiasm plummeted earthward. This sounded a lot like Escoffier, she thought to herself. Sure enough, the student had taken her essay directly from the master. Directly, as in CTRL-C CTRL-V Bob's-your-uncle. Directly, as in roughly 5% of the word count originated with the student.

We will gloss over some of the details, because it would be a shame if Mme. Beurre-Noisette were ever to get fired for blogging, but the story wends its way to a panel of culinary school authorities. When this panel convened, my friends, Mme. B-N was, shall we say, surprised to discover that the student's statement described her as a super-mean meanypants with unreasonable standards. All the other instructors thought it was fine to use stuff from Escoffier.

Mme. Beurre-Noisette, like someone else who appears occasionally in these pages, is a rule-following type. After the panel questioned her, she was distressed. She is waiting for the results of the panel's discussion, feeling a little worried about a minor procedural error she made as a newcomer to the panel process.

She can't help thinking, though, that she is not the one who deserves a slap on her flour-dusted wrist.

P.S. I am fine, family is fine, work is fine -- just TOO DANG BUSY to blog.