SJCFCCA - What a Mouthful

SJCFCCA -- what a mouhtful. Wanna guess what it stands for? Simply Jumping Can Frequently Cause Crippling Arthritis, you say? No, sorry. Not even close. Try: San Joaquin County Family Child Care Association. And why is this important, you may be asking. I will hold you in suspense no longer.

Last night Frank, James and I were guest speakers at the monthly SJCFCCA meeting. What an impressive and fun group of people. Allow me to digress. I love public speaking. When my daughter was 12 she spent her summer "writing a book." When I asked her, "How's it going?" she said, "Great! I can't wait to finish it so I can find out how it ends!" That's how I feel when I give a presentation such as the one last night. It's always fun to find out what I'm going to say. After Paula Baca (SJCFCCA President) introduced me, I thanked her for inviting us, thanked the audience members for coming, introduced Frank and James, and then said to the room full of child care providers, "If I had a hat on I'd take it off to all of you. There is nothing in life more important than taking care of children. They are our most valuable natural resource."

When I heard myself say that I thought, "Wow, that was cool, Ginny. Way to win them over with a simple and sincere statement of fact!" (This is called trusting your subconscious mind to provide the right words at the right time. Or -- allowing yourself to be spontaneous.) After which we talked to the group about our book, Charming Children -- How the Relaxation Game helps Good Parents Raise Great Kids.

Sometimes a group is hard to "read." Are they interested, you ask yourself internally while your mouth is moving around other words directed outward. Are they listening? Are they getting it? Do they care? Sometimes their faces, their body langauge, give you no hint. So you keep talking, giving it your best shot, and console yourself with the fact that no one is throwing tomatoes at you. "But..." your ever-insecure inner child whispers, "no one would do such a thing at the cost of vegetables these days!"

So you just have to wait and see, and what we saw last night after we wrapped it up was a happy crowd asking interesting questions, sharing some personal experiences, and then... buying lots of our books to become our first official Advocate group. (For more information on how our book can be used by you as a fundraiser, go to CharmingChildrenTheBook.com)

It was a geat way for the three of us to spend our evening, and I, at least, fell asleep feeling very pleased with the knowledge that some valuable information is now in the hands of more parents and providers of care for kids. You know, it used to be that I'd often say, "The teen years are tough. Teens need all the help they can get." Unfortunately, the younger years have become tough too, in their own way.

It's not the same world I grew up in, where having your braids dipped into an ink well was the worst that could happen to you at school, or having your pony get loose and run home without you so you had to walk those long, dusty miles back to the ranch. Maybe even barefooted.

Just kidding. I'm not THAT old! But you get the idea.