I’m Téa Sloane Smith and I like makeup. The colors are refreshing. The feeling on my skin: luxuriant.
The family left the writing of the annual letter to me this year – a good choice. Cooper’s attention span for holiday letter-writing is short. Devon’s is nonexistent. I however can bend spoons with my mind.
Let me take you through a typical morning: After pole vaulting out of my crib, I carefully tiptoe to my bathroom where I systematically unload all I find stored away in any bag, box, drawer or shelf. This can take up to an hour. My aim: thoroughness. First, I create two piles: things that 1) belong in my purse and 2) don’t belong in my purse. Employing Bayesian updating, I establish a tertiary decision rule to select purse-worthy items: (a) things that clearly belong to me (e.g., barrettes, shoes, toothbrushes), (b) things that look like they belong to me (e.g., MAC lipstick, matchbox cars, puzzle pieces), and (c) things that should belong to me (e.g., car keys, small hotel shampoo bottles, Blackberries®). Following the organization of these goods, I institute the re-organization process, in which I invert the packing order to ensure the optimal purse-load. I could “Org & Reorg” for hours. To aid my process, I have trained my family on how to behave while I am in re-org mode. Here are my top five rules:
- If I want it, it’s mine
- If it’s near me, it’s mine
- If I am looking at it, it’s mine
- If it’s a small container of expensive or indelible liquid, it’s mine
- If it’s mine, it must never appear to be yours in any way.
My brothers have advanced to kindergarten, where they have a new portfolio of colleagues and a set of academic challenges which sound fun in concept. My parents are marketers, so I am more suspicious of the arts of persuasion than the average two-year-old. One observation: Kindergarten teachers know how to brand things. Examples: Tootsie PopMath” (AKA math). “Transylvania Tango” (AKA dancing). The “Double Bump Letter” (AKA B). Inspired by Mrs. Somers’s branding prowess, Cooper has taken to branding our family traditions. Dinner is now “How Much Cheese Can You Eat?” Soccer played against Daddy is characterized by “Just-in-time rule improvements” (relating to how score is kept, exactly where Daddy has to get the ball to score, etc.) Seizing on another branding opportunity, Devon created a shorthand to increase communications throughput and parental obfuscation (WW: Wii Withdrawal; JFVWRGB: Jonesing for Vitamins which are Really Gummy Bears; LOATT: Lover of All Things Technology). Sweet success is seeing Mom and Dad’s perplexed looks.Devon continues to lead our generation in technical aptitude (he scores high as a LOATT). He has developed a series of theorems. One of them: there is an organ called a Torgan, which allows people to understand how technology works (like a kidney). Some are gifted with two (dad); others seem to have lost that organ (mom). Hypothesis 1: The presence of the Torgan is indicated by how many remote controls or power tools you are most comfortable having near you at all times: 3 (NTL = Not a Technology Lover), 7 (TL = Run of the Mill Technology Lover) and 22 (LOATT: Devon, Dad). In our experience, having things be forbidden really stimulates the learning center. With Devon’s gift of two Torgans, he aspires to become a robot-inventor (his back-up plan is to be a space traveler).
Cooper has non-secret aspirations to be a doctor (one of his favorite activities: visits to the doctor) or a professional negotiator. Cooper’s negotiating strategy: First, ask nicely. If that doesn’t work, barter. His differential advantage over others in his cohort: bartering when he has nothing to barter with. It parallels the “no money down” real estate model, and represents his preference to ask forgiveness rather than permission. You can see the wheels turn in his head when asking nicely doesn’t work; his eyes scan for anything in the vicinity which he can claim for his own (small hotel shampoo bottles), and then offer to trade for the wanted item (Yu Gi Oh! card). His success rate is near 90% with civilians (e.g. Papa Dave, non-relatives).
Most children start to learn Chinese, Spanish, or perhaps French as a second language. Merde! My brothers have skipped these established modes of gaining cultural and vocational capital, and have instead mastered the Pokemon language. “Poketalk” consists of a confluence of nouns, verbs and adjectives, which often involve the character Picachu. A typical sentence asserted with enthusiasm and expressive hand gestures by Devon: “Picachu can inflict 50 points of damage, and at only 2 feet tall, demonstrates considerable agility.” Cooper responds, “Well, dark Pupitar can do the Rock Tumble and you know that Rock Tumble’s damage is not affected by Resistance.” Plot lines are hard to follow, but vocabulary is extensive.
Frankly, I find Poketalk inefficient. You can communicate far more effectively through the simple but nuanced use of the word, “no.” A sampling:
- “No!” (“Hi and don’t take my thing!” I chirp this cheerfully, anytime someone asks me something).
- “NO.” (“I’m not going to stop doing this.” – said calmly but firmly when an adult has called my name from a distance. They can’t see me but I suspect they know what I’m doing. I state this at hushed levels; the intent is pre-emption).
- “Nonononono!” (“You have seriously got to be kidding!” – in response to the suggestion that I go to bed while guests are visiting and the party is clearly just getting started).
- “NO!!NO!!” (“If you take my small hotel shampoo, I will inflict way more damage on you than Picachu could ever aspire to”).
- The Eskimo culture, with its pre-occupation with words for snow, has nothing on me and the nuances of “no.”
Recently we have become interested in the Swedish culture – spurred by Lina, our newest pal, who has come from Sweden to live with us. The first thing we have noted: she is smart. Really smart. As evidence, she knows all the words to the Pokémon song in Swedish:
“Nu tänker jag bli allra bäst. Och bygga upp ett lag. För jag ska söka och fånga flest. Och träna dom var dag. Pokémon! (Måste fånga fler). Helt okej. Vi vet hur man klarar sig. Du lär mig och jag lär dig P-o-k-é-m-o-n (Måste fånga fler). Jag ska fånga fler. Pokémon!”).
One of the most fascinating things about the Swedes is their food portfolio. It turns out we LOVE fish (who knew!), as long as they are Swedish. We look forward to visiting Sweden next year to swim with and hopefully eat more Swedish fish.
We hope you had much laughter, love and Swedish fish in your life this year.