jQuery & wp-enqueue-script not playing nicely

Child theme of twentyeleven

Hi im trying to make this bit of jQuery work on my page, mainly to understand how to get jQuery working in a WordPress child theme.

So far I have come across nothing but brick walls after trying several thousand different combinations of the wp-enqueue-script.

Here is a link to the code in my header. http://pastebin.com/ve4Ymv7Q

All it is, is a little script to make links fade in or out when hovered over. What i would love to know is, am i calling it properly?

I have a blank functions.php file with just the wp_enqueue_script(‘jquery’); and a script to limit excerpt lengths.

I tried putting the .js files in my child’s js folder and in the
h**p://my_domain/wp-includes/js/jquery/my_plugin folder.

I am running around n circles not knowing wether i`m just getting one bit of code wrong, a backslash here or a brace there??

Here is the script: http://pastebin.com/mh6dN77b

Tried taking the “$” and replacing with “jQuery” in the script to no avail.

The only other thing i can think of is that some CSS rule is overwriting the script. Whatever it is i am blind to it.

Please help. I never ran into any of this when dropping jQuery into static sites. Just want to understand how WP implements jQuery and to understand best practice going forward

Regards

Marcus