I once read an article that claimed young children believed their parents knew everything that happened to them. Even if the parents were miles away. The article went through some song and dance about how children thought they were connected with their parents, as if the parent could see through the child’s eyes.

Is it true? I have no clue. But it may go a way in explaining why kids can be little psychopaths.

Child A believes he is connected with the people around him. Child A does something that hurts Child B. Child A feels nothing. Therefore, in Child A’s mind, Child B is fine, and Child A’s actions get a smiley cat emoji.

Or not. It’s probably all a load. Or a premise for a dystopian thriller.

I bring this up to mention one of the few things that has been better this summer: Finley’s language.

While he was at school, Finley would constantly use profanities that we never use in the home. We finally found out that some kid at school was teaching him new words and encouraging him to try them out. In other words, a total psychopath taking advantage of another kid’s disabilities.

Without that little turd’s influence, Finley has gotten better, and more creative in his insults. For example, recently he called me a “piece of Walmart.” I’m not sure why he thought that was an insult, but I thought it was a solid burn.

Speaking of burning, my mother-in-law told Finley a story about a city’s 4th of July fireworks display accidentally shooting off all the fireworks at once. “The show only lasted thirty seconds, but it was spectacular.”

“Did the person running it die?” Finley asked, honing in on his disaster obsession. (Finley’s teachers asked us not to let him watch disaster films, yet they’re totally okay exposing him to a first grader spouting the F word).

“No, nobody died. The guy just made a mistake and all the fireworks went off at once.”

“Yeah,” Finley nodded in agreement, “then everyone watching died.”

Unrelated to any of this, Kella has started gymnastics again. She’s the youngest and smallest one on her Wednesday time slot, and it’s hilarious to watch her anxiously jumping and spinning and flipping while she waits for her turn to do more exercise. I wish I had a fraction of that energy.

I don’t really have a point to this post, no underlying “therefore.” Mostly I haven’t posted for a while because every time I tried to write it came out in a bleak tone (it’s hard to write a lighthearted piece about your son’s supposedly autism trained Physical Therapist calling to say she won’t be working with your son anymore because he’s too violent).

One final note before I go: when did it become a point of shame to let your cat out of the house? We have a rescue cat who clearly did not live indoors full time before she came home with us. After four months of her constant meows at the door, we gave up and let her go outside.

Since then, she’s been picked up by neighbors at least a half dozen times because they assumed she was lost.

Just let the cat have her fun, everyone. If she’s down the street a three in the afternoon, she’s not lost. Taking her into your house to try to figure out who she belongs to doesn’t really make things any better.