#16 Jessi's Secret Language

Jessi starts her book by stating she’s good at languages.  I really wish this would have been brought up in her traits in following books instead of the standard black, ballet, loves horses line.  Apparently she’s so good at them, she almost became bilingual during the week her family spent in Mexico.  Again, if she’s that good, I think this warrants more mentioning.

Jessi gets up early, goes downstairs to her barre and thinks about the recent move, and how her family being black has been tough for them here.  Then she starts thinking about the tryouts for a ballet in the area called Coppelia that she is trying out for.  I’m imagining something like the end of White Christmas when they’re all singing and the kids start dancing in front of them.  Anyway, everyone else wakes up and they start their day.

Jessi dashes in late to the BSC meeting and doesn’t get eaten alive.  Instead we get the chapter 2 summary of everyone.  And why is it that every Jessi book always has a vocabulary lesson?  Introspective is our word of the book here.  There is a call from a new family in the area named the Braddocks, who have a deaf child. They need a regular sitter and would really like for the sitter to know sign language.  Jessi gets the job and she’s really excited.

We meet Jessi’s ballet class and get a little background knowledge about how things work there.  It’s interesting to find out that not everyone in the class likes Jessi, which turns out to be important 30 books later.  Jessi lands the lead role in the ballet and some of the other dancers, Katie Beth and Hillary, are pretty nasty about it, insinuating she got the role because she’s the newest dancer in the class.  Jessi kind of lets it get under her skin, but she and her mother have a talk about the school and its qualifications and she moves on from it and focuses on her new sitting charges,

She has her first training with the Braddock family and meets Haley first.  What strikes me is that Haley is described as having a rattail. I hate rattails.  Moving on.  Mrs. B and Haley start teaching Jessi “Ameslan”, the outdated term used in this book for American Sign Language.  I shall refer to it as ASL hereafter.  (Too much Downton Abby!)  Matt arrives home in the middle of the session and he and Haley disappear while Mrs. B teaches Jessi the basic signs she would need to know to sit.  Jessi goes to get to know the kids, but Matt wants to read.  Haley gets a little upset that Jessi seems more interested in Matt than her….hmm….

The next chapter MA is sitting for Jenny P.  Most of the time Jenny’s not being all that bratty, but this chapter’s pretty bad.  She makes fun of Matt when they’re out on a walk. I have no time for children who pick on other kids, or their parents. Haley gets upset and storms off – Jessi realizes that Haley’s having a hard time adjusting to her new neighborhood and Matt’s deafness isn’t making it any easier.

Finally the big day comes: Jessi’s sitting alone for the first time.  Mrs. B is (rightfully) a little nervous, but she manages to pull herself away.  After snack, Jessi takes the Braddocks over to the Pike house.  Vanessa and Nicky close in age to Haley and Matt, so Jessi thinks it might be a good match.  The Barretts are there as well and the introductions begin…along with the staring.  So Jessi introduces ASL as a secret language and instantly the kids are intrigued, so much so that Haley stays there teaching signs after Matt and Jessi head back to the Braddocks’ house.

The next chapter is a sitting chapter.  Mallory and Dawn are sitting for Mal’s siblings and they are quite wild, until they send the kids off to play and the house gets quiet.  Turns out they are practicing sign language and making up signs of their own.

Jessi’s part in Coppelia is a lot of work but she’s been putting in extra time and everyone notices in her dancing.  Her naysayers are even being…civil to her.  She’s waiting for her dad after practice and sees Katie Beth with her sister, Adele.  Turns out Katie Beth’s sister is deaf, but her family doesn’t much know ASL.  Jessi spends a little time showing her signs and Katie Beth seems to be interested.

Another sitting chapter!  Claudia sits for DM, Karen and Andrew.  Karen starts scaring Andrew, so Claudia distracts them with ASL.  She ends up calling Jessi a few times and Karen tries to tell a ghost story using ASL.

Jessi continues to her busy schedule, sitting and dancing.  As she spends more time with Haley, she finds out that Haley feels responsible for Matt, helping him make friends and defending him.  She resents all she has to do for him sometimes, because it makes her feel like an outsider too.  Haley mentions at one point that Matt’s never been to the theater and that sparks an idea in Jessi’s mind.

At the next BSC meeting, Jessi works on teaching the other sitters more about ASL and finger spelling.  During the meeting Mrs. B calls to tell Jessi “everything is arranged.”  Oooo….a secret.  Then she surprises everyone by telling them they’re invited to her performance of Coppelia. 

The next day Mrs. B picks Jessi up from school and takes her to Matt’s school.  Jessi makes a little signed speech inviting the students in Matt’s class to the ballet as well.  The students are very excited.

A sitting chapter!  Kristy sits for Jessi’s sister and brother and discovers that there’s a secret a-brewin’…Kristy doesn’t like to be left out of secrets.

Jessi finally tells everyone what she arranged for Matt’s class…and I wonder to myself why she kept it a secret.  It’s not as though it made a big difference.  I’m still puzzling over it myself. Anyway, it’s opening night and Jessi’s a little nervous, hoping everything goes well.  Mrs. B is signing and Haley is narrating before each act so that the deaf students can enjoy and understand the ballet better.  The ballet goes beautifully, Jessi does a wonderful job and the students really enjoy the ballet.  It turns out Katie Beth’s sister is in the audience and Katie Beth has been taking sign language lessons to communicate with her.  Yay her.

After the ballet, Jessi and her friends get together and surprise!  Jessi’s cousin Keisha is there as well.  This was the other secret Becca didn’t share with Kristy.  After everyone gets settled and has hugged, kissed, and cried, they all go out for dessert.  What better way to end a book than with dessert?

Mommy Moments:

• If I were the parent of a deaf child, I would expect my sitter to know sign language.  I know that would be a high qualification, but that would be up there on my “must haves” list.
• Just a thought:  Jessi mentions how expensive her toe shoes are, but that her parents are more than willing to buy them, even though she doesn’t plan to be a professional.  How much money would you put into something you know may not have a specific future for your child?  Just curious.
• Go Mama Ramsey!  She a)notices something bothering her child and b)addresses it with her daughter.
• Boo to the family of Katie Beth and Adele.  She’s your child, for Pete’s sake.  Learn ASL so you can communicate with her, even if she is in a special school most of the time.  I can’t imagine not making every effort to communicate with my child.

#5 Dawn and the Impossible Three

I drew Dawn.  This is her third book snarked and poor Claudia, one of the founding five has only been snarked once!!  Soon the odds will be ever in her favor…

So, I blame this book for my incessant need to have a clean house before any sitter comes over.  Most of the time, Dawn is whining about how messy Mrs. Barrett’s house is, so I have this phobia that if any of my sitters see the house in disarray, they are going to consider myself and my children “impossible.”  The other reason is that at the beginning of the book, Dawn (partially) blames the divorce on her mother’s disorganized habits.  Her father “just couldn’t live with it.”  Sorry, IMO disorganization is not a good reason for a divorce.  Just sayin’.

Looking at the cover, it looks like Dawn is with some ordinary kids in a not so messy house.  Impossible, you say…well, let’s just dive in and see, shall we?

After a relatively brief introduction, we find that Dawn is sitting for just a few of the Pike kids.  After her short and succinct chapter two descriptions, she meets Buddy and Suzi Barrett when Suzi falls on the front steps.  Dawn fixes the owie; soon after Mrs. Pike arrives and Dawn leaves for Mary Anne’s house.  Exciting news there – Dawn’s mom and MA’s Dad are on a dinner date!  They head over to Claudia’s house - they still are polite at this point and ring the bell – and talk briefly with Janine.  Why they make such a big deal about Janine, I don’t know.  Maybe because she’s Ted Mosby.  They start the meeting, MA gets a job with the Prezzioso “brat” Jenny and Dawn gets a job with a new client – the Barretts.  She’s excited because she’s a kid of divorce and the Barretts are just going through a divorce and it’s just meant to be.

When she gets home her mom is running out for her date, so it’s just Dawn and Jeff for dinner.  Just as Dawn is getting ready to eat, MA calls and tells her that she gets to redecorate her room and Dawn offers some of the extra furnishings they brought with them from Cali.  The next day she hauls them over to MA’s house and they start checking them out.  Kristy looks over and sees them together and MA invites her over.  Kristy gives Dawn the cold shoulder and tries to muscle her out, which worries Dawn.

Kristy continues to give Dawn the cold shoulder and Dawn realizes Kristy is jealous and feels left out now that MA has another friend.  Really?  Did it just now occur to you? 

The next day Dawn sits for the Barretts (Buddy, Suzi and Marnie) for the first time and she is greeted by actual children, not the Stoneybrook Stepford Kids.  They are messy and their clothes are askew (for lack of a better word).  What would you expect of children in the afternoon?  Unless it’s Jenny P, I’m guessing most normal kids aren’t perfectly spotless after being awake most of the day and their hair isn’t going to be perfect either.  Mrs. Barrett rushes into the room and rushes out – failing to leave Dawn any instructions.  Now, I get the need for emergency numbers (posted by the phone) where I’ll be and a schedule.  If I don’t have everything perfectly laid out, I would hope my babysitter would be able to function…I have my doubts about Dawn’s abilities.  She has the kids help her clean the house and then she does their hair.  By the end of the job, they start talking about divorce and how daddies never come back and Suzi starts crying and calls Dawn a liar.  Now I get that Dawn just went through divorce too, but I don’t want my sitter getting into a deep discussion with my child about something that’s personal.  Especially not my four-year-old.  I think I’d be a bit perturbed if I found out about this.

The next chapter is a sitting chapter and Kristy is sitting for Karen and Andrew.  The point I found interesting is that Kristy insists on talking to the parents of Karen’s friend Hannie before she comes over.  Apparently sitters are supposed to include parents in their plans.  I guess that gets lost as the series moves on.

Dawn decides she has to do something about Kristy, so she invites her over to spend the afternoon at her house.  They end up having a good time and the tension between the two of them subsides a bit.

Dawn’s next sitting job with the Barretts is all day and when Dawn gets there at 8:15, the girls are still in their jammies and she starts twigging out a little.  On the weekends, we don’t get the kids out of their jammies until 9, unless they want to get dressed.  Relax, Dawn!  After Mrs. Barrett leaves, Dawn prepares a mental schedule, since she’s meeting up with Claudia and Stacy for a picnic lunch.  Of course the schedule doesn’t go as planned, but they manage to make it to the picnic with brownies that they made.  As Dawn goes to give Marnie one, Mallory grabs it out of her hand, informing Dawn that Marnie is allergic to chocolate.  Yes, this is a big thing that she should have been informed of.  At the end of the job, Dawn decides she’s going to complain to Mrs. Barrett about her 4 grievances:

1. She never gives instructions (ok, I’ll give her that one)
2. She hardly pays attention to her children (a. not her business and b. how does she know?  She’s not there all the time)
3. She is disorganized (not affecting you that much, so I say no)
4. She’s only paying Dawn for sitting, not for housecleaning (which she never asked Dawn to do – it was Dawn’s choice to do it).

The next chapter is a Claudia sitting chapter and I had to check the chapter to find out whose entry it was, because the writing is fairly neat and, while she makes a few grammatical and spelling errors, she does not seem illiterate.  And we don’t actually read about her job with Jeff; the chapter is about Dawn’s woes with the Barretts.  She’s spending more and more time there, to the point that Mrs. Barrett says she’s the “glue holding us all together.”  This is where I look at DAWN’s mom and wonder why she doesn’t put her foot down and tell Dawn to cut back, especially after the whole Schafer family catches the stomach flu when Suzi is sick and Mrs. Barrett leaves the wrong phone number.  Buddy is also struggling with needing Mom time, especially with his special homework.

We have another sitting chapter that sets up the next book.  Stacy is sitting David Michael and he’s worried about moving across town to Watson’s house.

Dawn and her mom decide tohave a picnic for Memorial Day and somehow Dawn convinces her mom to get hot dogs and hamburgers.  MA’s dad and Dawn’s mom make goo-goo eyes at each other, to the slight annoyance of Dawn’s grandparents, but they come around as the day passes.

MA is the next to sit for the Barretts and she calls them terrors.  I call them kids who have been cooped up in a house during 3 days of rain.  There is a strange call from Mr. Barrett, setting up the next chapter.

Dawn’s sitting for the Barretts again and it’s finally stopped stopped raining.  She sends Buddy outside while she gets the girls ready and when she gets outside, Buddy is gone.  That is every parent/sitter’s worst nightmare. Dawn starts calling around hoping he went to someone’s house, but to no avail.  The neighbors start a search, but when Jordan Pike returns from his piano lesson and reveals that Buddy got into a car, Mrs. Pike calls the police.  The police arrive, question Jordan and start a neighborhood canvass.  Dawn gets a call from Buddy saying he’s with his dad and on his way home. Mrs. Barrett arrives home in the midst of this and finds out what happened.  Shortly afterward, Buddy and his dad arrive.  The story is that Mr. Barrett was so frustrated with Mrs. Barrett’s inability to keep the custody schedule straight and he decided to teach her a lesson. 

Dawn talks to Mrs. Barrett the next day and tells her she can’t do all that she has been doing and Mrs. Barrett agrees.  It’s also a good idea for Dawn to quit encouraging the kids and Mrs. Barrett to take advantage of her.

Everything turns out well and a few days later, Jeff comes to a BSC meeting and takes a picture of the gang for MA’s new room.  Here’s to the best friends you’ll ever have!

Merry Christmas!

Forgive us for being remiss in our snarking, but between shopping, wrapping, baking and shuttling kids to basketball, Christmas program practice and caroling, there's not much time for critical writing.  I can promise you that there is a Dawn book and Jessi book on the horizon.  I'm hoping to draw a Claudia book soon - we need some awesome outfits.  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!