Listening to Myself

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Today

Today we had our second class at the Lindsay Museum up in Walnut Creek. The class is supposed to be about the weather, but I think the instructor has decided that it is too complicated of a subject to try and broach with three year olds, so instead we talked about spiders and insects. The kids enjoyed it, and I got to hold a 4" walking stick insect so it all was fine. There was also a good sized tarantula to look at, but the instructor was a little too squemish to take her out of her cage... which I thought was too bad, I would have liked to hold her. As you might be able to guess, creepy-crawlies don't bother me at all! *grin* I don't need to keep one as a "pet" or anything, but I do find them fascinating.

One thing I find rather funny about being up in Walnut Creek is that it is so hard to tell what the relationship is between child and adult because there are so many older parents and very affulent parents who can afford full-time in-home care for their child(ren). Looking around the park we visited after our class I found myself wondering - Parent & child? Grandparent & child? Great-grandparent & child? Caregiver & child? Who knows! The parents are commonly the same age as my mom, and many of the grandparents look like they could be the same age as *my* grandparents. Another thing I've discovered is that I tend to assume that if I see a white adult with a non-white child that the child is adopted. However, if I see the reverse I tend to assume the adult is the caretaker rather than parent. My own prejudice I suppose, although I can't say I've ever met a non-white parent who has adopted a white child... which got me thinking - why is that? It must happen, I would think! I wonder how often it works out this way, especially in porportion to the number of adoptions overall. The things I find myself thinking about as I stare vacantly into space while Emma plays at the playground...

Emma did find a little girl to play with at the playground who was reasonably close to her age and they enjoyed each other's company very much. My mom is starting to give me a hard time about not getting Emma out around other children enough (because of course without that sort of contact she will only view other children as alien beings or something) so I always find it rather gratifying when Emma plays easily and well with other children. Not that I would expect otherwise, but still my mom does manage to plant a seed of doubt. I did find it interesting that the little girl was at the park with her grandmother, who was about the same age as my grandmothers (late 70's, early 80's by what she was talking about remembering). She did say that this little girl was her youngest granddaughter, but the youngest grandchild of any of my grandparents is turning 21 next week. Quite a difference!

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