"What's your name?"

I look up from behind the short shelves of children's books. I find myself here every Saturday now. While I spend the time looking over other children's stories to see if I can gain any insights into children's literature, I'm not there for the books. I'm there to keep an eye on the two girls in my charge who are playing in the small castle featured in our library.

The girls love it.

"I wanna know your name," the girl whines. "What's your name?"

I'm terrible with ages, but she's probably five or six. She accosts the silent two and three year olds one more time. "Tell me your name."

'Oh no,' I think to myself. See, we've taught them to only give out their name when they've been given permission. We've encouraged them to be nice, polite and to greet others, but to be more possessive of their name.

This is obviously not true of the other girl. She appears to be from a system where divulging your name is the foundational ritual of all social interactions. And within the confines of a classroom, this makes sense. But this isn't a classroom. This is a public library. And loud talking whining is not socially acceptable.

The girl moves on, giving up on her quest. She heads to the stairs of the little castle and one in my charge follows.

"No!" she yells. "You can't come up here. There can only be one Queen and I'm the Queen. You can't come up here."

Undeterred by this ludicrous babble, the three year old again attempts to take the stairs. The bigger girl spreads her feet and grabs hold of the railing, blocking all entry.

"NO!" she yells again. "I'm the Queen and there can only be one Queen. And I say you can't come up here. You can't come up because I want to be alone. And I'm the Queen. And there can only be one Queen."

I almost ask this little troll where her parents are.

I almost remind her that this is a library and of the importance of being polite and that understanding social protocol is essential if one is to be queen. In short, to be quiet, like the two in my care who haven't raised their voices above a whisper since we entered the building 15 minutes ago.

I almost inform her that the two girls she is addressing care nothing of being queen. They want to be princesses. And of princesses there need be no limit.

Almost.

But I stand back, half obstructed by children's books, watching to see what will unfold. The six year old troll continues to shout about her self-appointed title ¹ and how it grants her exclusive rights to the castle--for, as she points out again and again, only the Queen can live in the castle, and there can only be one queen and that would be her.

When the girl's parents do not appear, I gently coach the three year old. "Use your words," I quietly remind.

"Please can you move?" she asks in a whisper. I almost explode with pride.

"No, I'm Queen," comes the loud and obnoxious reply.

My surrogate dauther turns to me. "Oh, she said, 'No.'"

"She did," I agree, nodding encouragingly. We've been working on not trying to force your will on another. You may make requests, but not demands. If your request is turned down, you must live with it.

The older girl has started up the last four steps to the upper level of the castle.

"She's moved," I tell mine. "You can go up now."

The troll stops and glares at the little girl. "No. I don't want her to come up," she says.

"That's too bad," I calmly reply.

The troll, completely unable to handle adult conversation, mounts the last few steps and sits down, singing to herself about how she is Queen.

Castle Queen of the Trolls

Once we're back in the car I tell the girls how proud I am of them for being quiet and nice despite the other girl. We tell Brittany when we get home.

My wife smiles.

"That's the perfect response to bullies. I'm so glad they didn't feed the troll."

Socialization is not a problem in this preschool.

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Surrogate Father

P.S. On a much more difficult note, I'm not sure I'll ever figure out the proper social technique for dealing with the loss of life: My family mourns the loss of Baby Grace.

¹For those of you not familiar with the xkcd web comic it often contains inappropriate content. This one is safe, but check out the other posts at your own risk.

I've had a follow up post to A Reason Not to Homeschool almost ready to go since Friday morning, but my sister's baby totally took over. My other post is coming, but I have to take care of current business first:

Baby Grace is doing well, as is Jonelle. My dad's blog has a ton of photos and all the latest.

I was, as I said on Friday, blown away by your response and prayers. Thank you. Words do not express the gratitude I feel at the outpouring of your support. Your immediate and continued prayers powerfully demonstrated the kind of community we are: A community of support and love. A community of prayer.

I am so honored to be a part of this community. What a privilege!

Three things struck me today:

1. I want to remind you that we absolutely want to support you in prayer as well. If you don't feel like sharing your prayer matter with the world via Facebook, we do have the private Prayer Closet on our Forums. We pray for these needs on a weekly basis within our prayer groups.

2. With great popularity comes great opportunity. You may not read my posts often. You may not know me very well. You may not really care what I think about. But when I posted with the Sonlight logo on Facebook an urgent prayer need, you responded. 144 comments here. 50 there. More and more pouring in. Absolutely inspiring and humbling. I'm not a celebrity in the homeschool world,^* but the Sonlight logo gave me a certain amount of clout. This is both wonderful and sobering.

Sobering because my friends who have equally weighty needs don't have the instant support that I did. They aren't connected to a well-known name. Their needs aren't as pressing. And so their burdens fall more squarely on their shoulders.

May we as a loving community of believers draw together for all needs. May we continue to support one another ever more. And may those who feel alone, abandoned, in need and still wanting be comforted. I know I need to grow in this area. Which leads to...

3. The Leech Effect. I hate bringing up the same prayer request week after week in our prayer groups. It feels draining, unproductive. And so I don't mention it. Worse yet, there are times when a need is brought up yet again that I think, 'This again?'

How terrible of me! May we never weary in doing good and constantly bring our needs before the Lord.

That said, what can I pray with you about today?

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Surrogate Father

^*Not for lack of trying, mind you. <smile>

A family from church came over to hang out with us last night. They've adopted three girls from China--one of whom is in the Sunday School class we teach--and they seem to have "adopted" us as well. It's nice to have a couple who are a little farther down the path share the things they've learned with us.

We talked for a while about some of the struggles we're experiencing with the girls. [If you're up for a raw, albeit well-written, glimpse into some of that, swing by my wife's blog.] At one point while we were talking about food issues I said, "If they were merely afraid there wasn't going to be enough food, I could handle that. We covered that in adoption class. But this, this is entirely different and it drives me bonkers!"

Yes: Bonkers.

They smiled at me and offered some really good advice. Then some more. And even more after that. Some of it should be obvious--like the fact that I should focus on encouraging and building up, not just pointing out where they need to "shape up." But one idea was so totally different I just had to share it with you:

You make up the rules.

As a parent, we're in charge of the game. We make up the rules and if we need to change them for us--or our children--we can.

"But what about consistency?" I asked. "Consistency is key, right?"

"Yes, but if it's not helping anyone then it needs to change. The really important thing that must remain consistent is that they need to obey. But if it comes down to being consistent versus changing what needs to be done so you can help your child move forward... change."

That was good.

I have long felt trapped--painted into a corner--by my unyielding consistency done under the banner of "for the children."

Painting Myself into a Corner

No more.

This is my house. As the authority, the parent, I make the rules. And the rules can change. In fact, the rules should change if it will help me love the girls better and help the girls become the women they are supposed to become.

I'm Free

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Surrogate Father