Thinking About My Son & Visit (Dinosaur Day)

I'm thinking about my son right now and felt I knew he was thinking of me too. I am listening to Cruella De Vil again, as I write. I forgot how much I love to hate that despicable creature, and how she is such a good characterization of actual people, some, in the world.

I knocked on the window when I got to the offices to visit my son. He hid his face, grinning and then had me find him. Then I coaxed him out, though he's always laughing, by saying, come see what I have for you! And he said, "What?" and wanted to have a look. So I showed him cars I brought for him to look at again and then he wanted to play in the other room. So we went there and Oliver first wanted to play with the cars and he found the Cruella car and I sang the song and he laughed and wanted to sing it again. He also looked at the food I had brought for him.

I also showed him books I'd brought. I have asked to have the Winnie the Pooh book back so I'm able to read it to him but it hasn't been sent back with him yet. I checked out "The Mouse on the Motorcycle" by Beverly Cleary, about Ralph on the motorcycle but I think I am getting a better idea of what I need to look for now. He will sit happily through a Pooh chapter book, and doesn't get impatient, but he was very impatient with Cleary and thought both are chapter books and about the same level, the Pooh one is actually superior language, and yet it's compact so it's interesting at every half paragraph. With the Cleary book, it's a fun tale, but the language is kind of dull and it takes a long time just to talk about a mouse having a fling on a motorbike.

The length of the books is the same, but the writing is much more refined, humorous, and compact, in the Pooh books. And I don't mean the imitation pooh books where it's just pictures and then someone else writing a sentence or two. I mean the books by Milne. The man can write. With the Cleary book, it was too much dull set up to get to the plot. But, I do think Oliver still enjoyed it and would enjoy it more in time. I told him to use his imagination but while he didn't have trouble doing this with Pooh, it was harder for him with the Cleary book. I think when he's older he'll be able to trudge through boring parts to get to the plot. He kept saying, "Where's the motorbike? where's the motorcycle?"

The next book he picked out of the bunch I brought, was a book, a DK book, about Insects. He wanted me to name every single one of the insects on the first couple of pages and they were mainly of beetles, with a few bees and moths.

He wanted to know each insect and had me naming them and then said "a ladybug!" but it was a beetle and I said, "yes, it looks one, and you know, ladybugs are a kind of beetle I think." I don't know if that's right. Maybe ladybugs are a bug and not a beetle. But I named them all and then he was fascinated by all the insect parts and wanted me to point out and name "all the pieces".

When we first went into the room, he picked out a couple of stuffed animals from the box, a tiger and a little beanbag bear, but he didn't play with them while in the room. In the room he did sit on the black bear and say, "gidduyup!" He sort of rode the black bear like it was a horse. Kept saying "giddyup!"

Then he had a snack from the things I brought for him and the things his aunt and uncle brought for him. I am going to try to buy him some more food for his house. I brought him some sirloin steak and sauteed mushrooms, tortillas, avocado, Greek salad, and a sour cream lemon pie (mini) and a yogurt. He also had yogurt and sandwich and juice from home. The mushrooms were in a plastic bag and I said, "Honey, what do you think about this? do you like them or not?" and I thought he might say they were gross or didn't look good but he said, "Yum! I like them!" He ate some of the steak and said, "Deer?" I said, "No, it's not deer meat, but it's meat." Then he talked about looking for deer with Pablo. I said, "Did you see any deer?" and he was excited to say they went out looking for deer. He said they didn't see any but I told him, "Deer meat is from deer. This meat is steak, and this is from a cow. Chicken is from chicken." And he nodded. He wanted some stories while he was eating. I read him stories about the chicken little and his friends and his favorite one was the chicken little one, where the guy is not believed, that the sky is falling down, and no one but his friends believe him or help him. The whole story is that he sees pieces of the sky falling down, literally, and he tries to tell people but they make fun of him. Then his friends decide to help him.

There were 4 stories in the series and he wanted me to read them all. I did, and asked which one he liked best. My personal favorite was the chicken story but I said nothing so he could make his own mind up. He said, "The chicken one!" and I said, "That one is my favorite one too," and I gave him a kiss on the forehead. But now i think about it and I think I won't do this because I don't want him to feel he's being rewarded only when he likes what I like. I think giving him a kiss anytime is fine, but I don't want him to put the idea together that I am proud of him if we both agree, and that he gets extra points, because I believe my purpose is not to conform him to what I want and things I like, but to, in general of course, allow him to develop his own tastes and likes and feel they are noteworthy no matter what, no matter what he chooses, that I'm proud of him.

Some things, like doing a good deed, I would reward, and I think that's what I felt, when he chose this story, because it was the moral that resounded with me the most as well, but I feel I have to be careful. The other stories were about a pig who was big but felt small and was anxious but had a big heart, and the other was about a bird who, I forgot about the bird, and then the other was a fish "out of water". But the one I liked was the same one my son said he liked. I do think my son and I are a lot alike.

Then he said at one point, that he killed a spider in the house. I didn't like the kind of relish he displayed. I felt there was a little too much zeal in his excitement about killing the spider. So I told him, "You know what, some spiders are very good. There are many good spiders, and just a few that are poisonous. Do you know what the good spiders do? They help to eat up all the other bad bugs that are worse."

Then there were a few other books but he played with the stand up synthesizer type thing but it was really for very young babies. But we played and I pretended to be playing the piano and he was playing the drums and we sang "Cruella De Vil" and "Do Your Ears Hang Low" and when I started singing the ABC song in Spanish, he started talking more again. He pretended to play the horn and a lot of instruments and wanted me to play with him.

He looked really good, in general, at this visit, and looked a little bit like he'd had more sleep in the last day or two. He looked healthy, and even, in just a day or two, like he'd actually put on a little weight. He was starting to lose the circles under his eyes. It could be that in the last week he's been on the upswing but it's taking time to kick in, but by today, even from Monday, he looked healthier. His language and everything seemed appropriate too, although he was distracted a lot but there were so many different things to do. I really didn't notice anything odd, and believe me, I look and am attuned to things. It seemed like he was doing better. I just hope the next few days will be good for him, because it's hard for him, too, to be away from me this long.

What else? I will fill it in more. But at the end, I did a treasure hunt and let him choose which sucker or lollipop he wanted. He chose the blue one but last time he wanted red and I just brought him several kinds and told him to choose one for me to hide but that he could have them all. So I gave him all of the lolipops. He started singing the "lolipop" song so I sang with him.

He stalled a lot again, and it was very clear he did not want to leave. Also, at one point, when he disobeyed I told him it was time for time-out and he looked at me and said "Am I going to get a pow?" or he said "pop". He said "pow me?" and I said, "What honey?" and he said "pow me" and he said "hit me"? And I said, "Oh no honey, Mama's not going to hit you." I said, "Who hits you?" and he said, "Holly and Pablo". So I said, they spank you? and said yes, he should talk to Michelle about that because Michelle and the state have told Holly and Pablo it's okay to do that.

He said it to me like he gets abused all the time, like he was just expecting it and wasn't even afraid. But maybe he wasn't afraid to tell me because he has already known what I've told him and he knows that his mother keeps her promises, whenever possible.

Ironic, isn't it? A kid is taken from a good, excellent, mother, and then the state workers encourage abuse and block the mother from documenting what's going on, out of hostility.

The one thing I did think about, is that while I do know Holly and Pablo believe in corporate punishment, his phrasing of "pow me"? is something he got from someone else. I do not ever hear Holly say "pow" or Pablo? "I'll pow you?" You want a "pow"? Someone obviously gave him this idea of pow. It makes me think someone tried to put this idea in his mind, over and over, so he would repeat one thing if asked, but I DO also believe him that he's hit by the Avilas because I addressed this with the state workers and THEY have ENCOURAGED it. As did the Chelan County "detectives" who shouldn't be detectives and who should be fired. I have a list. Believe me.

Believe me, if I had any power, I was just thinking, or talking to my friend today, and saying, you know, if it were up to me, so many people would lose their jobs the town might have to come to a standstill for a minute. I think that many people, if rightly fired, should be fired. It would come to a halt, new people would be put in who might not have all requirements but who had a healthy dose of integrity and morals, and then things would get going in the right direction.

What I don't know, is if most people want to be liberated from this system or not. I can't figure out whether there are more people who enjoy this the way it is, or if there are some who are like what was said about Iraq who are just dying to be liberated and yet go along because they have to. If given a CHOICE, how many would choose this system the way it is, the way it's run in Wenatchee? I don't think it's possible to really know. I see a lot of expressions and emotions and can read the feeling of the area and there are a lot of people who really get off on it. But there are others who really look afraid, or disgusted, or like they really want something better.

I wonder, if these people get their jobs and are elected by the voting majority, how do enough people band together to, frankly, revolt? How do you get these people out of their jobs? The same people who allowed innocent parents to go to jail and suffer and their kids to suffer, they're all still in power. I don't think one person lost their job.

This town is already using violent ways of trying to get their point across and using violence and illicit military and medical equipment to harm others, at their leisure. There is only a facade of lawfulness here.

I am for peace, but when I think about this town and how no one is coming in from the outside to flip it over so all the little centipedes and insects come crawling out, I do believe there is going to be a day when there will be civil unrest in this town and in this country if this is the way it is elsewhere.