As I write this, I am not in a helpful mental space to express what I hope to very clearly or easily. I couldn’t sleep last night and so I am missing the rejuvenation that sleep can provide, especially after a difficult day. Disclosure aside, I want to thank this community.
I came home from work after 7:00 last night to find my daughter already showered and ready for bed, homework completed, dinner done and kind of cleaned up… all of these things accomplished by 5:00 because she was so excited to post her first diary and interact with this community. She, like her parents is stubborn, so getting all of these things accomplished in a few hours space is not an easy feat; all parenting praise goes to Glen. But my point here is that because she wanted to post her diary and interact with this community so much, she completed all of her chores rather quickly. So, Thank you Daily Kos Community, you are extremely helpful and informative in revealing that interacting with you is positive reinforcement and a successful motivator.
Second, I know we are a varied community with many vitally important focuses, all of which deserve our attention and discourse. While we may have to agree to disagree at times what each of our priorities are, nomandates and I wanted to provide a space in which we could share our focus and discuss issues without the stress of having to deal with trolls or adversaries. Our virtual kitchen is a safe place to talk about your politics and your personal because these two items are inextricable. Each of us in this community brings something important and energizing. If you are posting a diary, we hope to republish it to the group stream because we want to read it and support you. Feel free to send diaries you think this community would benefit from seeing to the group queue and please post your links off of the KTK tip jar for easy finding.
Third, as most of you know, we are in the midst of a heartfelt and informative Climate Change blogathon. These diaries are posting between 11 and 5 Pacific every two hours through Friday. If you haven’t had a chance to read them, save them for when you can. These diaries will be republished to the KTK group stream so you can always find them there. We ask that you rec, tip and make a comment to keep these diaries on the rec list all day long. Yesterday appears to have been very successful as far as taking up space on the rec list and deserving to be there! If you are on Facebook or Twitter, please share and tweet, these diaries are personal stories, the kind that really tug on your heart and elicit empathy and understanding, feelings we need to embrace to fight Climate Change. Which leads me to my fourth and final topic.
My daughter’s diary was very successful yesterday. It remained not only on the rec list, but also at the top of the rec list for hours and into the night. At one point, this child’s voice even knocked off a Syria diary where negative interaction was driving up its visibility. At this writing she has 243 recommends, 206 comments, 66 likes on Facebook, 25 tweets and is ranked 6th on the High Impact list. Her diary was even shared here and here. Yikes! I keep thinking of Miley Cyrus and all of the childhood stars whose fame did them in. She is my 9-year-old little girl who went to some protests with her parents and in doing so, experienced some things most kids don’t have the opportunity to. The reception she is being giving is somewhat overwhelming for us, and I find myself wanting to explain how this diary came about. So here you go: TLO participated in all of these events; we sat around the table talking about them and we also provided her with important foundational information. We wanted to make sure she got something important out of each of these events and clearly she has. Developmentally, she is on the cusp of being able to conceptualize stimuli and information but for the most part is still rather concrete. She is not genius or gifted. She does well in school and excels in math because she has every day math practice for the last two years. She has to work hard for her achievements. I find myself wanting her to be successful quicker so maybe I help her too much at times, but I do try to pull back. In the interest of time and my sanity, we did not ask her to ‘write’ this diary, we talked to her about each event and what meaning she came away with. As she spoke I typed her words, gently finding coherent sentence structure to make it more readable and cohesive. Yes, she deserves to be praised for participating in these events, for putting her heart into it, and for advocating to her peers. We are so very appreciative and moved by all of the comments and good wishes toward her but we are still mom, dad and little girl.
As I said in the beginning, “Thank You” for your thoughtfulness, your love and your support. We are a better family because you are in our lives, whether virtual or not.
What do you want to Kibitz about this lovely evening?
~