Attack of the Drone

If you've ever been a teacher or parent (or a dude in front of a football game) you have surrendered to the dreaded automaton voice aka Drone Speech.

I've noticed it creeping up the last two weeks since the Hot Tamale is really pushing the behavior envelope. When I used to work in prison, er public school, ten seconds into Drone Speech would completely unravel classroom discipline. In the family arena, the voice materializes around 4:30 when tempers, dinner, and thinning patience converge. Drone speech invades everyone at one point or another, sometimes in the form of nagging, but not all nagging is automated. I nag vigorously with flare most of the time.

Some people don't even know they have this capability for Drone Speech! Others use it EXCLUSIVELY!!! (And annoy the watchuzis out of the rest of us!!)

How do you know when you're infected with it??

1. Your voice sounds about a half octave higher.

2. You use the words "ok" and "ready" way too much.

3. The children or folks being addressed are completely oblivious to the words coming out of your mouth.

4. You move very quickly and find it hard to focus your eyes.

5. M-o-n-o-t-o-n-e.

We're (God and I) working on identifying when I start to talk like one of those pull-string toys and zipping it shut before it annoys people, namely Hubs and the HT. SkippyDon would heart me even if talked through a creepy voice modulator--he's no yardstick for my parenting success.

Maybe it's as close to an out-of-body experience as we can get, this Drone Speech, because when it turns on I feel about a second behind the present. Deliberate, intentionally chosen, seasoned speech is 80% of discipline. Shoot, it's 80% of relationships! I must slow down, stop to think, and forget pushing my agenda when the Hot Tamale starts to freak out or it gets as nasty as day-old fries.

SLOW DOWN. Breathe. Pray. And focus. The other stuff can wait.

FREEEEEEEEDOM!!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, service men for making it possible for us!

We take it for granted every day.

Happy 4th everybody!

My Apologies to the Elderly

Wheelchair users, blue hair lovers, and nursing home gangs beware! The Hot Tamale WILL freak out fifty yards away from you!

Naughty Grandma is doing a bang up job when she watches the kiddies every Wednesday and Thursday morning. She straps them in a stroller and wheels them a couple blocks down to a retirement community to expand their horizons. Visions of sweet little ones crafting God's Eyes and lovingly gifting them to the infirm and lonely brings a lump of choked-up-ness to my throat.

Hooray for soul beauty!

Our spicy munchkin has other plans for these hearing impaired folks. Mom pushes them up to a man who's fishing in the community catch-and-release. "Say hi, sweetie." Terror! Sheer horror! Gnashing, clawing, get-me-outta-here-or-he'll-kill-me-with-his-freeze-ray looks (or so the Naughty Gma says).

The Fish Man makes it worse, poor thing. "Well hi there little fella!" (Talking to her but clearly not noticing the long hair and pink shirt.) Claps three times right in her face. Oh no. Not good. More terror-filled agony. So the elderly gentleman leans closer in. "Whatsa matter?" Even more yelling! "Can I showya howda fish?" By this time any aquatic dweller within five miles has found a hiding spot well beyond diving range.

This charade continues on for a few minutes until the Naughty gives some lame excuse about lunch.

Fast forward to this weekend--our visit with the Great Grandfolks. My Hot Tamale did her best to make her Great Grandfather feel like a two-headed, tarred and feathered leper. At least he didn't realize it was him she was fearing. She sprinted away from him at every sighting shouting, "No? no? no?!?" By the end of two days she barely mustered a bye-bye wave.

What is it with kids and older people? Why do they freak out?!? Maybe it's the way they tend to invade space, or their smell, or the slow way they talk. Maybe kids act the way some of us feel when WE visit with the elderly. My dear HT, we both need some work here. We'll get comfortable around older folks, I promise! After all, we'll be walking in their shoes before we know it!