7 Quick Takes -- Germs, Fake Introverts, Valentines

Joining Jen today for Quick Takes.
1. Our girls have matching Valentine’s Day dresses!  Sim has a new Lego t-shirt, because he doesn’t actually want to wear pink and hearts for some reason.  None of this is due to me – Grandma Ellie made them their gear and sent it along.  They all love their new clothes, although in the photo session this morning, they were more intent on showing their irritation with each other (for some reason everyone is irritated by everyone else this morning).  I did manage a few good shots.
       
2. Simeon threw up yesterday.  Back to being the House of Germs.  Although I’m hoping it’s actually House of One Child Who Ate Something That Didn’t Agree With Him.  Poor kid.  He did not enjoy the experience, although I think he was more upset when I told him he couldn’t have dinner.  Crying and asking, “WHY?  WHY?” repeatedly – not fun for either of us. 


3.  We used the wallbed that Michael installed!  A priest friend of ours is in town for a night and stayed with us.  It’s great to see him. 

4.  We love our priest friends, and I like to tell myself that they don’t like hanging out with us only because it confirms them once again in their vocations.  Nothing like having a kid throwing up in the other room just as we’re about to sit down to dinner to remind a guy how happy he is that he took those vows and dedicated his life to the Church. 


5.  Michael is a fake introvert.  I began suspecting this a while ago; every time we go out places, he voluntarily and needlessly speaks to people he doesn’t actually know.  Here’s the thing:  I will certainly speak to people if it’s necessary, like a clerk at a store.  And I’ll be polite.  And I may even add things to the conversation that aren’t strictly necessary.  What I’m almost certain not to do is seek random people out and talk to them when I’m out and about.  I’m not a misanthrope, it’s just that I almost never think, “Hey, I should go talk to that person!”  Usually I think just the opposite.  In certain situations it might happen, like when I went off to college and wanted to make new friends, but not every time I go grocery shopping or take the kids to the park. 

6.  The reason I finally decided Michael is a fake introvert is that he told me about a training he had yesterday at work.  The training involved very little lecture because the person leading the training holds to the theory that adults learn better with application rather than lecture.  Not that I disagree with this.  Probably a strong case can be made that everyone, child or adult, learns better through doing than through sitting and listening to a lecture.  However, this theory leads to trainings like Michael’s yesterday.  The participants had to write a goal down, then find someone in the group to share it with and discuss it.  I get squirmy insides just thinking about this.  I share my goals with almost nobody, and looking around a room full of strangers to find someone to share a goal with sounds like torture. 
More fun was to be had, though!  They were each given a pad of sticky notes to write down a problem on the top sticky, then they passed them around the group.  Each person had one minute to write a brainstormed solution to the problem on one of the stickies below, and all the pads were passed around the whole room.  Again, if I have a problem, I do not just broadcast it into a group of people I don’t know and presume that people will help with it.  I think carefully about who might help me and approach that person – or those people, generally one at a time. 
I’m not saying my way is right in either situation.  What I am saying is that this particular training would have been completely tortuous to me, and so I was saying things to Michael like, “Oh, man, that’s terrible!  I’m so sorry!  Boy, what a horrible three hours!”  I may have been pouring it on rather thick, because he came back with this:  “Oh, it wasn’t too bad.  I got to meet some new people.”
Fake introvert, Your Honor.  I rest my case.

7.  For a while we’ve been doing Family Movie Night on Friday nights.  It’s generally fun, although there are some challenges in finding movies that don’t scare our children – they’re apparently very sensitive to movies.  We’ve had a couple of really good ones lately, though.  The Sword in the Stone was a big hit (despite Madam Mimm, who freaked Sim out a bit).  Last week we watched Robin Hood, the version where Robin is a fox.  The kids laughed so hard during that movie – it was really amusing.