Milestones

I'm so happy for our country. I feel we have a capable, clear-headed, and consensus-building president elect. Three cheers for President Elect Obama and for all of us.

Also, the Beavercreek School bond, which I helped stump for, passed. It was its third time out, and a lot of people felt it was doomed with the recent economic downturn. But, the grassroots effort we put out seems to have made the difference. Three cheers for the citizens of Beavercreek, Ohio.

Another milestone: my sister Kindermusik educators are convening right now, in North Carolina. I'm thinking of you, ladies. Oh, I wish so much I were there. It's the right thing for me right now that I'm not there, as I'm not teaching Kindermusik right now. Sometimes, I'll be floating around the house and I'll start singing "Ram Sam Sam" or any other of a million little Kindermusik tunes in my head, and I'll miss teaching Kindermusik so much, it makes my teeth ache. But I'm working on the Nurturing Parenting teaching right now, which is off to a VERY SLOW START which is part of what makes this hard. I truly hope to be back in the saddle and at the KM convention in 2009.

Another milestone: I just passed my one year anniversary of keeping this blog! Wow. Coming upon my one year anniversary is forcing me to pause and reconsider. It started as a Kindermusik business tool. Then it morphed into a craft/Hall family happenings/random thoughts blog. That format would make sense if my family read it, or a wide circle of friends. But the truth is that there are three people who come by regularly to check in with me (bless you, friends), and two more who stop by once in a blue moon. I'd be more efficient, possibly, if I just e-mailed those dear friends. So, I'm rethinking the blog, and it's going on hiatus. I hope it will be back again soon, in a more professional context, perhaps. Or? I don't know yet. I'm wondering if I stop blogging, if I'll be nudged into working on the writing projects that hover on the edges of my consciousness.

Love to all. E-mail any time.

It's not so much the long journey...

...that wears you down, but it's the pebble in your shoe.

I used to have a friend who had this saying framed. Today is definitely a pebble in my shoe kind of day, and thinking of this forlorn little quote seemed to help a little.

What quotes do you think of on rough days? I don't mean so much the "buck up, little camper! Tomorrow will be brighter!" kind of quotes. I mean the kind that quietly sympathize with your state of mind. Quotes that speak to the human condition.

Here in the battleground state

Yep, we're in a battleground state here in Ohio. I took this photo of a neighbor's yard. Talk about battling.

When my mother was here visiting, she commented that she'd never seen so many political signs, and I believe her--where she lives, in Washington state, the electoral votes pretty clearly go blue, so Washington citizens don't put so much energy into convincing each other.

But I live in a battleground state this year, and I decided to jump into the fray. Yesterday, with a group of folks from the Obama Campaign for Change Office in Beavercreek, we went knocking doors. The office provided us with lists of addresses where, they somehow determined, undecided voters lived. We attempted to cheerfully, politely, and respectfully persuade. We said why we were voting for Senator Obama and gave out flyers. People were very nice. I think they are very used to this sort of thing in Ohio. I wish there was a different way, a less obtrusive way (hi, I know you're enjoying a precious Saturday at home with your family, but I wonder if you'd like to talk politics for a few minutes...I didn't actually say that, but that's how it felt...) , but this is the time-honored way of increasing your candidate's polls. It was hard work, but I'm glad I did it. It was a pleasure to be among like-minded citizens in Beavercreek. It was also a pleasure to see who showed up--I suspected that I might be the oldest, for example, but I'm happy to report that there were many folks older than me. Older, younger, middle-aged, men, women, black, white. Very cool. My door-knocking partner was a professor of geology at University of Dayton, father of three, and life-long democrat. He was a great guy. Overall, a good day, and I slept well last night.

the house's best feature

...is a big tub that, with a promise of excessive bubbles, normally bath-phobic children dive right into. And the dog is clearly thinking about it in this photo, though I'm happy to report that she didn't actually take the plunge.

Remember how we had a puppy? Well, no longer. Lacey is now 6 months old, and officially "mature". Tomorrow she goes in to be spayed. Oh, I feel so sorry for her. I wish there was some way I could explain it to her. Bless her little canine heart.

Now all we need is a yellow brick road

Yes, if you guessed Dorothy in the guess-the-costume post, you get an A+.

I don't think I fully appreciated how iconoclastic this costume is, until I was at the cutting counter at JoAnn's with these bolts in hand. "Oh, you're doing Dorothy!" she said. Um, yeah. A stunningly original idea, obviously. But that's okay. It was Leah's idea and she's going to have a great time, even if she's one of several Toto toting Dorothys in the school hallways.

I made a little white skirt, and this apron to wear over it with a white blouse. I'm very happy with how it turned out. More to the point, Leah loves it. I directly stole the idea of costume-as-apron from the amazingly creative Amy at http://angrychicken.typepad.com/ . So, after Halloween, she has a charming apron for hanging out in the kitchen with me. And lovely matching hair bows, should she choose to don them.

She told me she wanted to be Dorothy for Halloween about one second after I said "The End" when we read Frank L. Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of OZ this summer. She, nor Jacob, had seen the movie until this past weekend. Before seeing the movie, she was looking forward to her silver shoes. Well, of course! The shoes in the book are silver. I was all for dressing her in the silver shoes, and having her explain to everyone that she was Dorothy from the book, snob that I am. But Justin mentioned to her that most people will be expecting ruby slippers from the movie, and then we watched the movie, and that sealed the deal. Our household Dorothy will have her ruby slippers. (FYI, they changed the color to ruby in the film to take better advantage of that fancy new color technology they were showing off for the first time.)

Now you get to guess what the rest of the family is planning to be. That is, if the older child decides. Bless his heart.

Ubiquitous tension

You may have noticed there is a lot of tension in the air. It's the election, yes. It's the economic woes broadcast 24 hours a day on the news, yes. Locally, we have a school bond going before the citizens of Beavercreek asking them to fund a new junior high school and repairs to the other desperately bad buildings. I've been stumping for this, and everyone I talk to is either for it and tense that it won't pass (this is the third try), or dead set against it and tense that I'm asking them about it. And very locally, my husband's sciatic nerve has flaired up mightily. This has never happened before, so we're finding out exactly how painful a flaired sciatic nerve can be. Answer: very. This makes my sweetie, um, tense. He's in a lot of pain. The painkillers don't seem to be working. The doctors don't seem to know exactly what is causing it. I need to research it myself, find out the homeopathic remedies. I have a funny feeling they will start with turning off the news and getting more sleep.

Magical school pictures

My children's school pictures came back today, and they are killer good. I love them. The day they came home from picture day, they talked about how the photographer was giving them silly nicknames and they were all giggling. It totally shows. They both look happy and alive and....so darn old. I have a theory that the school picture camera has an uncanny ability to photograph your child just slightly in the future.

Let's play guess the costume

I'm making Leah's costume today. Can you guess who she wants to be?

National candidates in Dayton, OH

Several weeks ago, my son attended Senator McCain's rally here in Dayton, where he announced Governor Palin as his running mate. My son's very cool teacher, who is teaching about the elections, somehow secured VIP tickets for 23 third graders. It's true: I learned who the GOP running mate was from my eight year old! It's interesting to live in a battleground state in an election year, where your chances of seeing national candidates in person are very good.

Well, on Thursday, Senator Obama also had a rally, and the 3rd grade class couldn't go this time. So I decided Jacob and I would have a little field trip of our own. I took him out of school, and he, my father and I went downtown to the Fifth Third Field and joined the enormous line that snaked around the building. I wasn't sure we'd get in, but we did. Jacob and I cheered, clapped, ate peanuts, waved our American flags, bought campaign buttons from a vendor outside the ball field, and had a great time. I'm so glad we went. We decided he's one of a very few people in Dayton who have been to both campaigns' rallies.

My father was visiting from Washington state, and he decided to come along with us. This added an interesting element to the field trip. as my father is a life-long conservative Republican. Of course he was the good sport and gentleman that he always is. He did have a couple of sarcastic comments just loud enough for me to hear, and he spent a good part of the rally working a crossword puzzle, lest I should think for a moment that he was drinking the Kool-Aid.

The photos are actually on his camera, which I don't yet have. I'll try to post them soon.

It was a good day. And now I have this excellent fashion accessory from now until Nov 4th.

Nurturing Parenting website

Here is the website for the Nurturing Parenting curriculum. I'm just digging into it, learning about its founder Dr. Stephen Bavolek and so forth, but so far it looks good good good. I will be using the coursework for teen parents, naturally.

The latest from the universe

Remember when I was thinking about how to reach underserved, inner-city parents and their babies with Kindermusik? Remember how just as I was thinking of this, I heard the story of Geoffrey Canada and his parenting programs in Harlem? Remember how I decided to try to do something like that in Dayton?

Well.

I had called the Miami Valley Literacy Council, where I was so gratified to learn that they remembered me from volunteer work I did with infant Jacob in my arms, when we lived here years ago. I remember what a great parent you were, said the director. I almost cried to hear that. We all have moments when we don't feel like a marvelous parent, and I feel like I've had a few of those moments lately. And here was someone who actually remembered me for that quality.

Well.

It turns out that on the same day I called MVLC, they received a big grant for a parenting program for teen parents. They needed a qualifed teacher, but part time. I went and met with them today. They hired me.

I'm now going to teach the Nurturing Parenting curriculum three days a week to teen mothers at an alternative high school in downtown Dayton. I'll still be able to drop off my children and pick them up from school every day.

They want me to work with the curriculum however I see fit, working in lots of musical songs and games and literacy building and lots of things that I'm dreaming up right now as I type.

I think I have just found out why I moved to Dayton.

Required Reading

I am reading Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America. Paul Tough, a journalist who specializes in reporting on education, spent 5 years researching and shadowing Canada, who has done simply amazing things for the children of central Harlem. He calls his program The Harlem Children's Zone. It's a new approach to social services, bold and sweeping and...working. Sometimes it's a hard read--there is no sugar coating here--but really, read this one.

Or, if you'd prefer a quick overview, go to This American Life, and click on "Full Episode" under "Going Big." The feature on Canada is the first portion of the program. Better yet, go straight to The Harlem Children's Zone website.

A quick story: I had been thinking about how to bring Kindermusik to the underserved of Dayton, OH. Like most rust belt cities, Dayton has a large inner city population that's living below the poverty line. People who've probably never heard of early childhood music education or its benefits, and even if they had, they couldn't afford it. I was brainstorming possible grant sources while I was doing the dishes on Sunday, envisioning teen parents and their new babies learning songs and rhymes and strategies and TOOLS for their daunting new parenting journey, and the radio show I was half-listening to turned to the story linked above. It was about Geoffrey Canada, who, among other innovations, decided that he had to reach children right at birth or even before, or it was too late. He began Baby College, the foundation of The Harlem Children's Zone, where parents come to...learn songs and rhymes and strategies and TOOLS for their daunting new parenting journey.

Well, I started to weep. Sometimes the universe makes your path really obvious, and this felt like one of those moments. So I've been making phone calls and surfing Dayton social service websites. So far, dead ends. It's discouraging, but stay tuned. I'm not done yet.

Our love affair with Young Child, Semester 3

Leah is three classes into Kindermusik for the Young Child, semester 3. She Loves It So Much. She thinks the dulcimer is vastly superior to the glockenspiel. She comes home from school and plays it a lot, alternating with the piano, on which she makes up tunes. You can tell she's just proud to have a mountain dulcimer, in a way she never did about the glockenspiel. And she (and I) love Miss Kim. It's a bit of a drive over to Centerville for her Monday afternoon class, and worth every mile. I'm SO GLAD she can finish the Kindermusik series, even though we moved. We moved to Alabama just before Jacob's last year of Kindermusik, and he didn't get to finish--I would have had to drive 1 1/2 hours, each way, to Troy University. (Leah could still take her younger class--the Kindermusik program in Montgomery just didn't offer Young Child.) It's a testiment to how much I love Kindermusik that I nearly did that drive. I still kind of wish I did. Kindermusik is worth long drives.

In which this blog gets political

In case it's too small to read, the sign says HOPE.

For context for this photo, please watch this video.

I'm an enthusiastic supporter of Barack Obama, and I look forward to voting for him in just a few short weeks. I believe he's a principled, brilliant, and capable leader.

This is no small thing for me, to announce my political leanings on this blog. First, I originally viewed this blog and an extension of my marketing for my Kindermusik program in Arlington, VA, and therefore not a place for political comment. Well, now that I'm in Ohio and I'm not yet teaching Kindermusik again, the blog has truly become (let's be honest) just about me me me. Well, it was starting to feel duplicitous to write posts that sounded like I was sharing what was really on my mind, when the truth is I've been thinking a great, great deal about this election and my views on it. So, I decided to declare myself.

Second, I was raised by wonderful, loving parents who also happen to be right-wing republicans. I would even call them Red Dog Republicans, to paraphrase Anne LeMott--meaning they would vote for a mangy old red dog before they would vote for a Democrat. It's been a long journey for me to figure out my personal world view and my political leanings, and while I'm certainly still figuring things out, I have been for a while now clearly and definitely (and now loudly) in the Democratic camp.

This should make things interesting around the Thanksgiving supper table.

Whoever you are and whatever your views, please vote on November 4th!

Political reading for the young

Looking for a book to share with your young children during this election season? This one is FUNNY, both for your child, and bonus jokes and references for you. Enjoy.

The young are wise

Last night my daughter and I were lying on her bed, chatting right before bed time. We do this every night--me on one child's bed and Justin on the other, and then we switch. If I'm going to find out what's really on my children's minds, it's going to be in that 10 minutes before sleep.

Leah asked me, "Are you going to grow any taller?"

"No," I said, "Unfortunately, I'm all grown up and this is as tall as I'm going to get."

"Well, that's okay," she said. "Your spirit will keep growing taller."

She is so wise. And insightful and kind and funny. And this was just when I had a lot of worries, say, 700 billion worries, just as I know you do.

Something more for your inbox: Writer's Almanac

I know, Garrison Keillor has his critics, but I just love him. I catch Prairie Home Companion when I can. And I absolutely adore The Writer's Almanac. But Miami University (that's of the Miami Valley, here in Ohio, as in the Miami Indian Nation) broadcasts it at an awkward time and I hardly ever hear it. So I subscribe and get a daily e-mail. I believe I like reading it even more than hearing GK read it, because I hear the poem of the day more clearly in the author's voice when I can see the punctuation and line breaks for myself. Though if it's a poem I really like, I might click the audio button and also hear GK's take on it. A poem a day goes such a long way toward beating back the barbarian forces. Whatever those may be in your life. Highly recommended. You can subscribe here. (In the menu on the right, next to a graphic of a hand holding a quill pen, you can click to subscribe.)

10 reasons to like Beavercreek

There was a hint of whine in my voice in my last post. Not good. So, to rectify, I offer you the following list.

Top 10 reasons to like Beavercreek (Edited--I had mis-numbered, so I actually had 11 reasons. That bodes well, don't you think? I could think of 11 reasons! Hurray!)

1. There really are a number of creeks and wetlands here, and I'm told there are actually beavers.
2. My children and I bike over a little wooden bridge, which spans a babbling brook, on our way to school and back every day. This is magic.
3. Beside the babbling brook there is a field of long grass, and just as the sun is rising in the morning, a low fog, mysterious and cool, hangs just above it. Often there is a flock of geese nestled in the fog, quietly going about their goose business.
4. I keep meeting people who have lived here their entire lives. Or they went away for college, and now they've settled back here, and their children have the same social studies teacher in middle school that they did--stuff like that. It's not the kind of small town that is dying out because the young leave and stay gone as soon as they can. Quite the opposite--Beavercreek is growing and the schools are almost bursting.
5. Ms. Rigano, my son's 3rd grade teacher. I believe she is a teaching genius. "She's the strictest teacher I've ever had," Jacob reports. But he also can't wait to get to school, because they're having a class election (part of their study of the presidential election), or they're opening their store, or they're publishing their books, or they're calling a NY fire fighter on the anniversay of 9/11 to hear in his words about his personal experience at the World Trade Centers, or they're practicing with money for when they work a day at Bob Evans. And on and on!
6. Ms. LeVesseur, my daughter's 1st grade teacher, another teaching dynamo. She jokes with them all the time. They are happy and relaxed and productive and they laugh a lot. When she reads aloud, she does all the voices, and when a child raises his hand and spills out a story that is completely unrelated, she listens and lets him finish and doesn't rush him back to the task at hand. She made dollars with her photo on them, LeVesseur Loot, and when the children earn them for doing great work, they proudly slip them into their handmade wallets. And on and on.
7. My neighbors are kind, thoughtful, and generous. My neighbors' kids are cheerful, happy, unusually polite, and fun. My kids love to play with them.
8. BSA (Beavercreek Soccer Association). Someone gave some land to Beavercreek, and a soccer "complex" was built, which means 27 soccer fields all located together, behind a car dealership at the edge of town. Game days are madness. It's also really fun. It feels like every family in Beavercreek is out there, staying for hours as they lumber with their lawn chairs and coolers from one child's game to another. The parents take turns working at the concession stand in a big shed, or they volunteer to coach teams (as Justin is doing). Goals are occasionally scored. Children get sweaty. It's good.
9. While our school levy has not passed, there is a passionate and sizeable grass roots movement that's working right now to explain to the good citizens of Beavercreek how important, how crucial that levy is. I'm getting involved and learning about how voting activism works. You just never know what you're going to learn about when you move to a new community.
10. Barney's Hardware. Yeah, you could drive a little farther up the road to your choice of Lowe's or Home Depot, but Justin and I try to get it at little old Barney's as much as we can. They've attached hammers onto the doors in some clever way, which serve as the door handles. They have some very young-looking employees who will trot--trot, I tell you--right over to help you reach something or find something. And this story: I needed to order a toilet seat. The young woman at the counter was recording my info in a giant, old-fashioned log book. She asked for my phone number, and after I gave it, an old guy standing in line behind me said in a perfect deadpan, "Wait a sec, let me just jot that down," and pretended to reach into his pocket for paper and pen. That cracked me up. He (clearly a regular at Barney's), said, "Don't you just hate it when you have to tell everybody in the store what your phone number is?"

"Well," I said, "I sensed I was among friends."

"You are," he said.

And you know? He meant it.

Dayton speaks for peace

And here I thought I lived in an ordinary little mid-western city. Oh my goodness, I was just surfing around a bit tonight, and found THIS. Please have a look at the work Dayton (yep, little old Dayton, Ohio!) is doing in both fiction and non-fiction literature for the promotion of peace.

This is fantastic. It reminds me that we should never be afraid to have big ideas, no matter how small our budget or out-of-the-way our city. It also reminds me that Beavercreek, my 'burb, which feels a bit small and bland and uptight to me right now, is not Dayton. I hereby resolve to get into Dayton more often, which is obviously where the ideas are flying through the air.

On having fresh herbs about

This scene makes me extremely happy. I found just the right bench to fit under the big window in the kitchen. I found the pots, ordered the organic seeds online, made the plant markers, and now, wudja look at that! Real herbs, right here in my kitchen. I am growing:

Parsley

Sage

Rosemary

Thyme

Cilantro

Cammomile

marjoram

mint

dill

basil

oregano

chives

So this is all lovely, but now we've come to the tricky part of actually using and maintaining these lovely sprouts. Wish these herbs luck, dear reader, because if my past record with plants is examined, you'll know they need it.

Dog + Stick = Happiness

At some point in this blog, I reported that we were assiduously keeping Lacey from chewing sticks in our backyard, per vet instructions. Well, we abandoned that some time ago and I wanted to set the record straight. We were at a new friend's house, where the dog was blissed out, working his jaws around a big ol' stick. Justin and I looked at each other with the same thing going through our minds--something like, okay, as long as there have been dogs, and there have been sticks, there have been dogs chewing sticks. Who are we to intervene? And life suddenly became so much easier when we let her do what dogs do in the backyard. I'm sure, I'm positive, that there have been sad cases of dogs with splinters in their throats that had to be surgically removed, just as the vet warned. But you can't live in fear, you know? I also let me kids climb trees and balance precariously on the back fence. Measured recklessness, I shall call it.

Masterworks from Georgia

A sister Kindermusik educator in Georgia (hi, Merri!) recently left a kind comment, and I took a minute to check out her blog. Wow, what an eclectic, interesting, prolific blogger! Not that I'm the tiniest bit surprised. Kindermusik educators, I've found, tend to be dynamic people. I loved this post about American women's right to vote (and what a very short time it has been since that battle, so hard fought, was won).

Also, as long as I'm talking about Kindermusik educators, I have to direct you to this post from Heidi, my pal in Texas. It cracked me up. I loved your pics from Oregon, Heidi! Beautiful family!

Wind, trees, and mindful raking

It was the oddest thing yesterday: no rain, hardly a cloud in the sky, but a wind storm ripped through southwestern Ohio with gusts up to 70 miles an hour. 200,000 Dayton residents still have no power, 24 hours later. Enormous trees toppled all over town. Two doors down, my neighbors lost both the biggest tree in their backyard AND the biggest tree in their frontyard. I would still be crying if I lost my yard's trees, but my neighbor is brave and gracious and talking about the new trees she'll plant. This is the same neighbor, a young woman with a two-year-old son, whose youngish husband suffered a stroke earlier this year. They are having more than their share, it seems to me. I sat in my family room for some time yesterday, during the height of the winds, watching the big tree right by our deck sway recklessly right down to its trunk. An astonishing sight. I willed it to stay upright. Please, I asked the tree. It did abandon some huge limbs in its fight, but it still stands. All of our trees made it. We never lost power and still have it. This is inexplicable, as most the businesses, schools, and homes in Dayton do not. We ran extension cords to our neighbors right next door and next to them, so they could plug in their fridges and watch the news for school closures. Our neighbor lost huge pieces of siding, and some of it was lugged back by another neighbor five houses down. Beavercreek schools (and all schools around here) were closed today, and they'll be closed again tomorrow. Jacob and Leah and the neighbor kids thought this was grand, and spent their day playing fort and elaborate spy games. The air was so perfectly still that I felt I must whisper outside--clearly the trees were exhausted. And mourning their fallen friends. Why wouldn't trees be aware of each other? So I quietly raked the branches and leaves beneath them--a sad job when the leaves are so perfectly green--all the while mindful of my great good fortune. Knowing that our wind storm was just the flick of Ike's tail, and that Ike stomped right through Texas. Such luck is humbling.

Grade the First

I keep accidentally calling Leah a Kindergartener. This is very Freudian and I must stop immediately. I've introduced her to two people as "in Kindergarten." I correct myself right away, but still. And then a couple of days ago, as we were walking toward the school while a bus discharged its passengers, I asked Leah if there were any Kindergarteners she recognized. she innocently replied that she didn't think she'd recognize any of the Kindergarteners. Right.

I really am glad that she's a first grader, and she's growing and learning and all that jazz.

Really.

Early

These are my children, riding off on their first day of school (I'm on my bike right behind them--my husband snapped this shot).

And that red glow? That would be the sun, not yet risen.

School starts sooooo early here--7:30. Some of the bus riders board their bus at 6:55am. When I learned that, I felt a tiny bit better about how early we have to start here at the Hall household.

I wake both of them from a dead sleep at 6:30am, when it is still perfectly dark outside. Before the birds sing. Before the dog wakes up. Before civilization as I know it wakes up. That gives them 50 minutes to be on their bikes and riding away, which is really not quite enough, but I can't bear to wake them any earlier. So, we've learned to lay out clothes the night before, locate shoes and pack backpacks the night before. I get up at 6am, which is earlier than my husband--you know, the guy in the military. Sheesh, that makes it feel early. And I have to hit the floor running, breakfast and packed lunches and all that. But I am getting the hang of it. And I try not to think of the old days in Virginia, when they could wander out of bed somewhere between 7:45 and 8am, and still have plenty of time to get to school. Sigh.

A side note--they get out of school at 2pm, but really 1:54pm. Which is so early that I often realize I haven't had lunch yet when it's time to pick them up. But I love the big gap between after school and dinner. They unwind, play, read a little, Jacob gets his homework done--it's all the luxury of time that we lack in the morning. Which is nice. We might even get to the point where we prefer it to the old schedule.

Composer's Datebook

It's been way too long since I've posted! For anyone who's been checking, wondering where I got off to, my apologies. My excuse: school has started. Oh, my. Systems seem to be mostly in place now, 2 weeks in, thank goodness.

I've got something for you! I haven't posted something even vaguely musical in quite some time, so I felt it was time. I've come across a wonderful service called Composer's Datebook from American Public Media. Many public radio stations broadcast it, but if yours doesn't or if you miss it, you can have them e-mail it to you. Oh, the joy of this, I tell you! Every day you receive a short, fascinating anecdote about a composer, living or dead. You can just read this, of course, but click on the "listen" button, and you'll hear the text as it played on the air with a snippit of the composer's music in the background, to ground your ear in time and place. It's a 30 second education about our musical heritage. It's great. Sign up here.

a Roxaboxen of their own

Beyond our back fence, under rambling, un-pruned limbs heavy with crab apples, there is a spot where four backyards meet, but it's forgotten and unused by all four families. That's right--it's not really there. It's off the map. It's uncharted territory. It belongs exclusively to about 8 or 9 neighborhood children who call it The Fort. I privately call it their very own Roxaboxen. In its current incarnation, it is a town, consisting of a circle of shops carefully constructed from low-hanging limbs, scrap lumber, and a couple of partially dismantled palates someone tossed back there long ago. And an old wagon. And fallen branches. Pine cones are their currency, and they sell art, crab apples, and a variety of weapons the nature of which I didn't quite follow. They were kind enough to explain all this to me when I wandered back for this photo. They politely invited me in, but I respectfully declined. That would just ruin everything, don't you think? There are only 4 kids in this snapshot, with The Fort behind them, but all day there have been many more. All day. Filthy and sweaty and glowingly happy.

I promised my children a trip today to a marvelous, fancy pool in the neighboring town we heard about, with two slides and water works, but they didn't want to leave The Fort. That absolutely thrills me, the joy they are creating for themselves, out of nothing. Out of everything.

Ever since I first found the book Roxaboxen, by Alice McLeron and illustrated by Barbara Cooney, I hoped that my children would have something like it for their own. We've got close before: the courtyard in Alabama, but it was out in the open and grown-ups barged through it all the time. Lacey Woods Park in Arlington, where another mom, a dear friend, and I would lurk around the edges and discuss how much freedom it made sense to give our small children in an urban park. The answer: not quite enough to make it a Roxaboxen. And just beyond our own fence, but a million miles away, here it is. Thank you, universe, for giving my children, and all these neighborhood children, this place.

I thought about getting Roxaboxen from the library--again--to share with Jacob and Leah. It's been a while since I checked it out last. But I don't think I will. To read about someone else's imaginings could influence yours too much, perhaps, when you're right in the middle of yours. It would give it a meta-fictional element--kids playing at playing, instead of playing. When you're writing a story, and someone tells you about another story on the same subject, you carefully avoid reading it just then. Maybe before, maybe after, but definitely not during the secret and delicate blooming of your own creation. Already I wonder how much they are thinking of Roxaboxen, and also the Shirley Hughes story in which Alfie and Annie Rose create a shop under a tree in their back garden. This one time, the literary references can wait.

You haven't come across Roxaboxen? You're assignment is to drop what you are doing and run out right now and procure yourself a copy. Why I haven't yet bought it is a mystery to me. I've checked it out dozens of times. It's a good one.

Library book love

I just started reading a new library book called The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, by Lewis Buzbee. It is an absolutely gorgeous book--compact size, rough cut pages, excellent typeset. Lovingly designed. Well, I just couldn't stand to read a book that had attended to its own aesthetics so well with that slippery, crunchy library plastic over it. So, very very very carefully, I slipped it out. Ahhh. I promise to tape it back extremely carefully and return it just so.

Speaking of my library, I have to give a shout out to the Greene County Public Library system. My closest branch happens to be the biggest branch, and it's a very good place. My only complaint is that the children's section is exclusively fiction--all the children's non-fiction is interspursed with the grown-up titles in the main library. This doesn't work so well for that dreamy, serendipitous brousing that a non-fiction loving kid, like Jacob, enjoyed so much at our little branch library in north Arlington. Well, as in many things, we will adjust.

More summer reading

I just read Nora Ephron's collection of essays I Feel Bad About my Neck. You know Nora Ephron, who wrote and directed some of the most popular romantic comedies ever, generally starring Meg Ryan. I expected the essays to be very, very light and make me laugh a little. Well, I laughed a lot, out loud even. The first two essays were so very light, even silly, that I was almost put off, but the later essays carry much more gravitas and are surprisingly soulful. Highly recommended summer reading.

A book review, in brief

Here's a brief book review for you, though you don't need it, as I'm quite sure I'm the last woman in North America to read Elizabeth Gilbert's book, Eat, Pray, Love.

She can write, no doubt about it. It's an engaging book, even if you ask yourself, as I did, um, why am I still reading this? The subtitle is "one woman's search for everything through Italy, India, and Indonesia." I offer this alternate subtitle: "spiritual renewal through total self-absorption." Or, perhaps, "how the world will peel you a grape if you are a tall, lithe blonde American with a fetching smile." Or how about, "how you might kill a year if you had absolutely no responsibilities and money was no object."

So, I guess I didn't love it, although there were sections that felt true and right, and she's good company for a summer read.

State of confusion

When someone asks me where I live, I can say "Ohio!" quickly enough. I don't have to stop and think about it. But there are some other situations in which I can't quite seem to place myself.

For example: when I order something on line, and I get to the part where you type in your address, I'm thrown by those drop-down menus where you select your state. What is it about that alphabetical list of states? For a fraction of a second, I just don't know. Which state am I in? Who can tell? If I'm just a little distracted, perhaps thinking about the Sale I just took advantage of or the free shipping, I can actually scroll down the list of states, waiting for one to look familiar, before I catch myself. It's Ohio, goofball. Go to the Os.

I would like to report this as a new development, just in the month since I've moved to Ohio, because that seems excusable enough. But honesty compels me to tell you that I always do this. I always have that split second "huh!" when I confront that menu, whether I'm in Ohio or Virginia. Or Washington state. Or Hawaii. Or Alabama. Alabama was nice because that state was helpfully first on the list. (There are also the two foreign countries I've lived in, but that's another story.)

I have another example of this confusion that dates back to my early memories of television. My dad used to watch a national news program, and it included a weather report with a map of the United States. The viewer is supposed to locate herself on that map, and then have a general idea of tomorrow's temperatures. This turned out to be challenging. If someone had said, point to California/Illinois/Ohio/Utah or whichever state I was currently living in, I could have done so quickly. But there was something about the passive task of self-identifying my location that made my head spin, and frankly, still does. I still look at a map of the United States and go uh, ur, oh yeah, here.

I imagine most people turn their heads instinctively toward their home soil.

The Gado Gado Disaster. Or, children at the table

I made Gado Gado the other night, a multi-layered Indonesian concoction that I took from Mollie Katsen's All New Moosewood cookbook. Okay, so Justin doesn't really care for tofu, but he'd like this extra firm tofu, lightly pan-seared! And Leah doesn't like broccoli and carrots, but she'll like them in these micro-thin strips! And Jacob, unaccountably, claims not to like peanut sauce, but he's going to like it homemade! (That sauce was so wonderful, Reader, I had to restrain myself from eating it from the food processor with a spoon.) Sprinkled on top with toasted coconut and crushed peanuts, it was just gorgeous. I just knew, before we sat down, that I had figured out a recipe to feed them these great foods in a way they'd love. They'd even ask for more!

Um, no.

There were tears, dear Reader, actual tears when I served this. Well, not my husband, who finished off his plate with a "if my wife makes it, then I eat it!" kind of vibe, and, notably, did not ask for more. The children at the table, they whined, they cajoled, they insulted the cook and the cook's sense of justice and the cook's common sense.

This turned out to be just a little bit, shall we say, grating.

Yeah, it made me mad. It was a really good meal, lovingly made, and it took no small amount of time to make it. And it was, empirically, simply, as Alton Brown would say, good eats.

I know, I know, you have to present a new food at least seven times to the youngest palates before they are ready for them. Most the time I'm pretty sanguine about their antics, and wait them out, and soldier forth, and focus on all the many foods they do eat which is more than a lot of kids I know....but this time it just pretty much got under my skin.

In How to Eat Supper, the WONDERFUL new cookbook/food information book from Lynne Rossetto Kasper and Sally Swift (who bring us The Splendid Table on NPR), there's a quote from the nutritionist and food researcher, Dr. Marion Nestle. "You would never know it by going to a supermarket, but children are supposed to eat the same food as their parents."

We're trying to do that here, all eat the same food. Some nights it's not as easy.

In the plum of summer

We have a plum tree in our backyard. It doesn't look like much, and I didn't expect much from it. Boy, was I wrong. Bumper crop! Of the cutest, tiniest, sweetest and juiciest plums you've tasted. So many! The kids and all the neighbor kids snack on them all the time, plucking them off the tree and into their mouths. We've left a ladder by the tree so anyone can grab one from the higher branches any time. There are still plenty for the birds and the squirrels and the butterflies and other bugs, and still there are so many. We took bowls to the neighbors. I made Plum Upside Down Cake, which was eaten so fast there was a vacuuming sound.

By the way, check out those summer legs. Dirt, bruises, scratches, bug bites, band-aids. I can't recall when I last saw shoes on those feet.

Ahh, summer. Happy August, everyone.

Oh, my.

We went to another check-up at the vet today, and Lacey, Duchess of Dachshund, has increased from 6lbs, 4oz when we first got her (2 1/2 weeks ago) to 7lbs, 10oz today. Wow!

It requires eating, of course, but it also takes a lot of snoozing to gain that much weight so quickly. Lacey knows how to sleep. Yep, she's among the pillows on my bed, if you're wondering.

You're spoiled rotten, I told her, and at such a tender age.

I have no idea what you're talking about, she said.

Required Reading

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Friend, READ THIS. Such a good book. Michael Pollan is a terrific, compelling writer (as you might expect a journalism professor at Berkeley to be), and his subject matter is fascinating.

Most people I know have been avoiding hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup, etc, for some time now. I predict that this book will recommit you to such avoidances through a thorough and sometimes shocking history of how industry, government, and marketing have created the supermarket mess that we navigate through today.

I hear that Pollan's previous book, The Omnivore's Dillemna, is even better. Have you read that? I plan to, soon.

Many, many thanks to Sharlene Gin, who first said to me that I MUST read this book. I loved it, Sharlene!

You know you've crossed over when...

you're cooking for your dog at 6am. Her little issue persists, and the vet thinks we need to reset her intestines with some extremely bland food--white rice and extremely lean ground beef. (I had to go buy the white rice, as I've only got brown rice in the house.) She's also drinking filtered water. Ooh, la la.

The funniest part is, I didn't mind at all.

Dogs are a very, very sucessful species.

I blame it on the kitchen.

When Lacey got me up at 5:30 one morning last weekend, I decided to just stay up and make dough from scratch for cinnamon rolls. A few hours later we had these, plus some cream cheese icing to melt on top. Oh so good. I've been meaning to make homemade cinnamon rolls for, I don't know, forever? And the kitchen in my new home has finally inspired me to actually do it. I've been going through my recipe books, making new dinners--more spices, more veggies, more variety. Mostly extremely healthy, with the notable exception of these golden beauties. I think it's been good for our family's transition in general to have a lot of homemade goodness. I know it's been good for me.

She has this affect on all of us

Hubris

A woman was moving to another state with her husband and two children and 15,000 pounds of stuff.

Oh, come on, the woman said. This is my eleventh move in 18 years, my twenty-first move of my life, and that doesn't even count the usual college moves, and moves from one house to another in the same town. I've moved overseas a couple of times, I've moved with a baby, a toddler, with a baby and and toddler. Moving to Ohio? Come on, challenge me.

Okay, the universe said, and added a puppy.

What's so hard about a puppy? The woman said. I've had puppies before. Bring it on.

Okay, the universe said. It will be a puppy so small that it's dangerous for her to take any stairs or jump off any furniture in the house, so the simple act of going from the kitchen down two stairs to the family room and out the door to go potty will require airlifting. Every. Single. Time.

Okay, said the woman.

The puppy will have diarrhea. You won't know why. You'll take her to the vet and put medicine in her food and try a new kind of food and take her outside more or less constantly because that's how often she poos.

Um, all right, said the woman.

Of course allowing her to spend any time on carpet will be quickly nixed, so you'll have to rig a sophisticated network of boxes in every doorway (3) going into the kitchen to keep her in the kitchen. Then you will have to stay in the kitchen with her so she doesn't get lonely. You will shuffle heavy boxes across the house to the kitchen floor for this purpose. This will work reasonably well until your six-year-old strolls through and does not, cannot, remember to replace the kitchen door boxes.

Hmm, said the woman.

You won't be able to leave the dog outside alone, even though you have a fenced yard, because this sweet little puppy will be teething, and will eat everything she sees. This includes sticks, which the vet specifically warns you against. $60 in appropriate dog toys will be no match for the lure of a really good stick, which will be prolific in your new yard. You will put the kids on the job to watch the puppy and play with her while you unpack a box. This works for a little while. Not long enough to get to the bottom of the box.

Uhhh, said the woman.

The diarrhea won't stop at night, naturally, so the puppy will wake you at 2:30, and again at 4:30, and then she'll pretty much be up for the day around 6.

Uncle, said the woman.


Okay, seriously, it's been challenging. Or it was challenging, when she was still this new puppy that somehow became a part of the move-in. But now, 10 days later, the puppy is Lacey, this wonderful, loving, playful, adorable little friend. I'm smitten. You can tell she's going to be a great dog. My kids have fallen in love with her. They've figured out games to play with her, they've lost their fear of somehow hurting her or not carrying her right, and we've all fallen into a rhythm together that mostly works. And, mercifully, she sleeps a lot, as puppies do. Much gets done when the puppy sleeps. Not unlike the old days of scurrying around when the babies finally fell asleep. Actually, I've been in a time machine in many ways--more on that in another post.

The boxes aren't done, but they're pretty close. I've been cooking, because I love, love, love my kitchen, it's such an inviting place to be, and I'm there anyway, hanging out with Lacey. My kids are doing great. There are some very nice neighbor families and neighbor kids. My husband is back to work and he already loves his job. I'm doing well. I'm lonely for my friends (you know who you are!) but I'm okay. I'm losing the feeling that I'm actually on a very odd vacation in someone else's house, a vacation featuring heavy lifting and dog feces, and I'll be going home (or waking up?) any time now. It is slowly becoming my house. It's good to blog again. Love to all!

One last hurrah

We were warned not to go by just about everyone, but yesterday we joined the throngs on the National Mall to see the national fireworks display. And we are completely thrilled that we did. Yep, the crowd pushed in from all sides. Yep, trying to get on the Metro afterwards was crazy. Yep, it rained on us periodically through the day, and yep, our rears went numb after sitting on the steps of the Lincoln memorial for almost seven hours. But we just didn't care, and the kids were incredibly good sports, completely on board with the adventure. We had a grand time--people watching, playing chess, reading Anne of Green Gables aloud, pulling our picnic out of our backpacks little bits at a time, taking turns walking around a little to let the blood flow back to our legs, playing I Spy with the umbrellas when it rained, and lamenting that there are too many black umbrellas in the world.

And then, at 9:10pm, there we were on the top steps of the Lincoln memorial, with Abe himself right behind us, enjoying the same view of the fireworks that we did. We were a few steps up from where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his Dream, where Marion Anderson, disinvited from performing at a local concert hall, sang out for a crowd of thousands--a crowd of regular people of the United States who enjoyed a free concert by one of the greatest singers of their time.

The fireworks shot up, just over the Washington monument. They filled the air with noise and smoke and unlikely color, the throng oohed and aahed, and we were right there in it.

It was great.

So, good bye to Washington DC. Good bye to Arlington and McKinley Elementary and Nottingham St. The packers come Monday, and by Thursday, if all goes well, we should be in Ohio. This blog is going to be really silent for a while until I get my computer hooked back up. I hope to hear from you on the other side.

It's been great, friends.

More butterflies

Because we just hadn't had enough of them. After Leah's butterfly party, we went to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, which besides everything else that is wonderful there, has recently opened the Butterfly Pavillion.

Have you been? Oh, please go. It is so great. I know, I know, there is much gnashing of teeth over it because there's a fee, and everything else Smithsonian is free, so that's just so wrong. Yes, it is wrong, so gnash away, and then still go because you can't miss this.

The butterflies flitter and flutter all around you. They land on you. They land on everyone around you. They are every color and every size and put you in mind of spring, new life, renewal, and every story you've ever heard about fairies. This all happens at about 100 degrees, as they keep it hot and moist in there, how the butterflies and flowers like it best. So it's simultaneously a good sauna sweat. Bonus!

And, to top it all, there was this Uncle Fester butterfly, who looked for all the world like a tarantula with big ol' wings on his back. We kept our eye on him and were hopeful he didn't feel like going for a flight of his own. He was perfectly still on the wall the whole time we were there, and frankly, he doesn't really look capable of flight, does he? A flightless butterfly? Anyway, he redefined the word butterfly for me, and that's good, too.

Turn up your volume and enjoy

Many thanks to my friend Heidi, in Texas, for this one!

http://heidisnotes.blogspot.com/2008/06/coaster-ride.html

I heart this photo

I think I'll stay six forever and ever

Wings fluttered. Antennae bobbed. Feet danced. Treasures were hunted. Songs were sung. Cupcakes disappeared. Real live butterflies were released, after pausing on Leah shoulder to thank her for her weeks of care before they joyfully fluttered up over the roof of the house. We even had a visit from Dr. Needlebaum, who looked just the tiniest bit like daddy, the completely inept butterfly specialist who gave our young guests many opportunities to correct his understanding of the butterfly life cycle. ("...and then the calculator...." "Noooo! It's a catapillar!")

It was a great birthday party. Many thanks to all who came. A million thanks to my mother, who conceived and executed an idea for the wings which was much more complicated and wonderful than what I was going to do.

Later, when it was quiet in the backyard and we were sitting around enjoying the paper butterflies floating above us and making queerly convincing shadows on the patio, Leah, still sporting her wings and antenna, spontaneously decided to recite for us the A.A. Milne poem. I didn't even know she had memorized it.

When I was one, I was just begun.

When I was two, I was nearly new.

When I was three, I was hardly me.

When I was four, I was not much more.

When I was five, I was just alive.

But now I'm six, and clever as clever,

and I think I'll stay six now forever and ever.

If only.

Full speed ahead.

My soccer players just finished their season, and I'm proud of all three of them. In this photo, Jacob's coach is telling everyone how great Jacob did and how much he improved over the season, which was absolutely true. And it wasn't just that he got a little bigger and taller, though that may have helped--it was because he worked really, really hard and practiced a lot. My buttons are popping.

I love everything about this photo of Leah running. It captures this stage. Note the delicate pinky finger extended. The flying ponytail. Her number, which she chose so it would match her age. Not for long...on Friday she turns 6!

Her daddy was her soccer coach this year, lucky kid. He's a WONDERFUL coach, kept it fun and lighthearted, and generally kept a gaggle of kindergarteners running in the right direction. I'm so proud of him. In this photo she's getting her medal with Justin and another coach, Mario.

Kindermusik graduates

Oh my, it's been so long since I've blogged. Just when I'd really made it a habit, too. A habit I intend to pick up again when I get to the other side of this move!

Just wanted to share with you this photo of my wonderful, talented, beautiful Kindermusik for the Young Child students. One child had to leave early, but this is a photo of the rest of the graduating class from Semester 2. Love them all. Miss them! (Well, except the one in blue. I get to take her along. Lucky mama I am.)

Flower Fun

Have your children click on the black screen. Better yet, click and drag! Have fun!

http://www.procreo.jp/labo/flower_garden.swf

The photo doesn't do her justice.

I'm a little worried about boring readers of this blog with too many puppy photos and too much talk about puppies....but not so worried not to post this photo. I mean. Seriously. Cute. Dog.

We met Lacey yesterday, and there is simply nothing like holding a puppy. Your own puppy. Here she is in Leah's arms, where I predict she'll spend a lot of her time in the not too distant future.

Lacey lives in a big, old, crazy, wonderful farm house in eastern Ohio, with a pack of other dachshunds who run freely between the kitchen and the sun porch. She was happy and playful and tail-wagging, and didn't seem to mind in the least when we picked her up and soaked in her puppy goodness.

It was hard to go. She's not old enough to leave her mama and littermates yet, and even if she were, we can't bring her back to our rental house. I'll pick her up when I drive to Ohio, and our new life and house there, in early July.

We closed on our house yesterday, then we got a thorough tour. I love it, even more than I thought I would. Now, in the fullness of late May foliage, it looks lush and private in the backyard. It's a pretty great house. It's ours!

We also stopped at my children's new elementary school, a short walk away. I'll wax on about this in another post, but I'll just say that my first impression of this school was wonderful. A good place.

So, Ohio, and the parts of our life there. Falling into place. Feeling true and right. Can't wait.

And, simultaneously, I'm now home in Virginia, doing the soccer game and birthday party circuit this weekend, and it seems unlikely and unwise to leave this scene and these people. Complicated.

Family Music for Grown Up Tastes

Here's the list: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90432642

Great selections here. There's a part of me that says, but wait, does every children's song have to appeal to the grown ups in the house, too? Some stuff ought to be just for the kids. Of course, I'm saying that as a Kindermusik educator, and as someone who, I've noticed, can listen to children's music longer and more happily than most other adults can.

But what I really think, is that really good music transcends age. The best children's music isn't "aimed at adult tastes," nor is it cloying, over-simplified, and poorly produced. Good children's music is good music.

I feel exactly that way about good children's literature--anyone would enjoy reading it. It's a good story with good characters, regardless of your age.

Introducing...

Lacey!

As in Maud Hart Lovelace. Lacey is a name all four of us really like, and it smoothly rolls off the tongue, and doesn't she just look like Lacey is her name? Once again (as all the names we've seriously considered), Leah came up with it. That kid has an understanding of what makes a good dog name. She's also devoted nearly every waking hour to the project....

We are taking a rather silly but very fun family trip to Ohio on Thursday and Friday next week. We're going to sign all the paperwork to close on our house, and then it will really be ours! Morgage and all! Woo-hoo! We get to walk through the house after signing (for the kids and me, it will be our first time), and the current owners have offered to tour us through the yard and show everything they've got planted out there. I can hardly wait. (Silly because we easily could have had the papers mailed to us, and saved us all the trip. But we didn't want to be spared the trip.)

And, as we drive back, we're going to stop in the little Ohio town where Lacey is currently hanging out with her mom and littermates, and meet her, too. What a great day.

We'll pick up Lacey for good on July 9th, the day we drive to our new house just ahead of the moving truck. That's bound to be a big day, I'll wager.

Great children's website alert!

You know the wonderful pop-up books by Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart?

Well, of course, Robert Sabuda has a website! A marvelous website! Including downloadables and directions for making a few gorgeous pop-up cards of your own.

Oooh, I can hardly wait to do one of these.

Kindermusic grads everywhere!

Thanks so much to my friend Heidi for reminding me that Kindermusik grads are here, there, and everywhere.

As we wrap up our last few classes of Kindermusik for the Young Child semester 2, and as I say good-bye to these wonderful, enthusiastic, and musical children as my family and I head for Ohio, it's good to remember that we are part of a huge network of young musicians who are getting a fantastic start in music and in life through the fun and joy of Kindermusik. Love it, love my Kindermusik kids!

Company

We're having company tonight, and there's nothing like it to spur a flurry of clean and tidy activity from myself and every other member of the family. Place is looking pretty good. Marvelous.

Wanna come over next weekend?

Craig's List Magic

I have both bought and sold a number of things on Craig's List lately, in preparation for the move, and so I'm freshly reminded of the magic that is Craig's List. The best example of this is the photo enlarger. It was a beast, it was in my basement, and now someone has it who loves it. Here's the story.

My neighbor had put this crazy-looking, old-time machine out on his curb, ready for trash pick-up, with a scribbled sign taped on it that said, "Working Enlarger. Take it." We had just recently moved here, and I had just become my son's coach for his Odyssey of the Mind team--where kids take stuff and make their own inventions. This thing in the gutter was just weird enough to be interesting, and I thought a team of first graders might think it looked like a sci-fi transmogrifier. And, it was a big, metal thing, and the thought of it spending eternity in a landfill made me cringe. So, with considerable effort because it's HEAVY, I loaded it into my trunk.

The team chose something else. The enlarger gathered dust in my basement. Fast forward almost two years--it's time to move, and I've got to get this albatross out of my life. I list it on Craig's List for $10. Ted, a guy in his sixties who has a hobby of rebuilding photography equipment, picked it up this evening, and he was completely delighted with it, joyfully turning its knobs and naming its many moving parts. "A little beat up," he said cheerfully, "but I've seen worse!"

Craig's List. Ted is happy, I have $10, and the landfill is spared one more thing. Pure magic.

Sweetness in Kindergarten

On Mondays, I go into my daughter's Kindergarten class and facilitate one of the literacy centers. I love it. I love Kindergarten. This morning, one child was at the clinic because he didn't feel well. "Where is he?" worried one friend, a boy I don't think of as especially expressive of his feelings. "I sure hope he comes back," said another, who I would describe similarly.

In a little while, he did come back, sitting down quietly with his cutting task. "I'm so glad you came back," said one of his friends. "Yeah," said the other, "We missed you." The child who had been gone blushed and smiled with joy.

Beautiful.

Lucky mama am I

These were hand made gifts--a hand painted fan, and handmade paper, from my children. Oh, how I love them. Both the children and the gifts.

I hope your Mother's Day included something handmade, or maybe a sweet, sticky little hand to hold--better yet. Happy Mother's Day, friends.

Fortunately, times moves on

Sometimes I'm almost overcome with waves of nostalgia, longing for just another moment with my children before they're all grown up, or fearing how fast it's all going by--their lives, my own life--while I was busy doing dishes or frittering some time away on something, or being angry or moody, and not living in the moment. But I was reading a collection of essays and came across this phrase:

Fortunately, time moves on.

Now, that's very helpful. Recast the passage of time as something that I welcome. Focus on what is healing and good about time going by. Embrace.

Fortunately, time moves on.

splendid local art

Please check out this website! http://www.arlingtonartistsalliance.org/artists/AAA/Elizabeth%20Hudgins/elisabethhudgins.html

This link will take you to Elizabeth Hudgin's profile page on this wonderful website. I have the pleasure of owning one of Elisabeth's paintings--it's gorgeous. A dear friend of mine bought it for me as a good-bye present. It will hang in a place of pride in my new home in Ohio, where it will remind me of Arlington, of my friend, and of McKinley (it was purchased at the McKinley spring auction, where Elisabeth had donated her painting). A lot of power in one lovely, small artwork.

A guitarist to watch

...and not just listen to....a much as I love his playing, it might be even better to watch the peace and joy play across his face as he makes his music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBPWtng1dBA

wisdom from a young teacher

There's a young Montessori teacher in rural, mountainous Mexico, who keeps a lovely blog about teaching and sewing and occasionally other things. She is young and not yet a parent and so perhaps idealizes things just a touch from time to time, but generally I find her wise way, way beyond her years. And so talented! For example, this lovely post.

Meet our puppy.

Okay, we haven't met her yet, either, but we've found her--our red, smooth, miniature dachshund. She's lives with her mother and six littermates in Garrettsville, Ohio, which is more or less on our way to Beavercreek, our new home. We're going to pick her up on our way there, when she is 11 weeks old. Right now she is 2 weeks old. This photo of our pup and one of her sisters was taken when she was 5 days old.

Here's also a photo of her mother, Chloe (the light red in the grass), and her father, Elliot. The breeder is a lovely person, she breeds just a few dogs very responsibly, she also rescues animals and is just generally very good to her dogs. Chloe whelped in her living room and lives there now with her pups, where she can keep an eye on them.

It's been a journey to find a breeder I like. One who doesn't have so many dogs that they couldn't possibly be really cared for, nor a "show breeder," who keeps puppies for six months, and then if one doesn't seem to be just perfect for the show ring, she'll sell it for $1000 or more. I wanted someone who breeds pets, but well and responsibly, and happened to have a red smooth available this summer. We finally found her. It feels perfect.

I can hardly wait to get my hands on that little ball of fur.

Her name? Maybe it is Betsy, named after the wonderful, inventive, creative, and daring heroine living an ideal childhood in the Betsy-Tacy series of books. The kids and I are completely sold on this name, and Justin is perhaps warming up to it. Stay tuned.

Jacob's latest joke, part 2

There are a short list of jokes that it really doesn't matter how many times I hear them, I'll still laugh. Like a Pavlovian response. Especially when a grinning, giggling 8 year old is telling me the joke. Here is Jacob's latest.

Knock knock.

Who's there?

A little boy who's too short to reach the door bell.

Intrigueing summer vacation idea

http://www.wwoof.ca/canada/content/what.html

Can you just imagine your children digging in the dirt, using tools, caring for plants and animals, getting dirtier than they've ever been, learning totally new things with their hands?

folk art beauty

My eye is drawn to folk art. I love this example, by Danita (she goes by her first name only), an artist in El Paso whose shop on Etsy can be visited here.

The title of this work is "Never leave home behind."

Good advice.

Two ways wonderful

Click here! http://www.freerice.com/

Your children (or you!) can have a few minutes of fun, improving your vocabulary skills (wonderfulness #1) and then, for every word you answer correctly, corporations donate 20 grains of rice where it's needed (wonderfulness #2).

Thanks to Melanie for this (and a million other things).

Wag the Dog.

I'm not (for once) actually thinking of dogs right now, but rather of this evocative expression. My friend Melanie recently told me a story about clover, which is yet another example of instances when the wealthy and powerful didn't have an ideal circumstance, so they created it. I realized that I now have something of a collection of these, which I share with you.

1. Clover. Prior to the 1950's, grass in one's yard was a rare thing. The most common ground covering was clover, and people liked it in their yards. It's a lovely deep green color, once it takes root it's extremely hardy, it tends to edge out other things so you have good coverage with it, it takes little water to be happy, it takes nitrogen from the air, not the soil, so it's not soil-depleting the way many grass varieties are, and it's a helpful plant for friendly, honey-producing bees.
But. Herbicides were in development in the 1950s, and try as they could, they couldn't come up with a chemical that would kill weeds, but not kill the innocuous, broad-leafed and therefore susceptible clover. The answer was to reclassify clover as a weed, and now the only hurdle to mass sales of herbicide to private home owners was to convince them that clover was, indeed, an enemy weed. A nationwide ad campaign was launched regarding the danger of allowing your babies to frolic in bee-harboring clover. Within ten years, no one's yard had clover, and almost every one's garage had gallons of herbicide.

2. Breast milk. Until the 1930s, every child born in the US was breastfed. In the rare event a mother couldn't or wouldn't breastfeed a new baby, a lactating relative would typically do the job, or a hired wet nurse. Some housekeeping books from the era included a recipe for "infant formula," the primary ingredient being usually Karo syrup, which worked okay in a short-term emergency. A company decided to market the Karo syrup formula, and sales were all right, but wouldn't sales be better if mothers could be convinced that the formula was actually better than breast milk? A nationwide ad campaign, which later became a worldwide ad campaign, ensued. Mothers were convinced. Breastfeeding was almost completely wiped out in my generation. When people realized that the formula companies claims were patently false, breastfeeding rates surged again, but to this day they are scandalously low, and dangerously low in developing nations.

3. The Chicago River. At the end of the last century, Chicagoans had a problem--their river was so polluted, sludgy, and disgusting that it smelled. Rather than reduce pollution, city leaders decided to reverse the flow of the river. And they did. In 1900, they completed a canal (which moved more earth than the more famous Panama canal project 10 years later), which ingeniously flushed the Chicago River in the opposite direction. Now they got their clean drinking water from Lake Michigan (billions of gallons a day), and their waste water moved on down the Mississippi. This was a great thing for Chicago. This was not such a great thing for St. Louis.

4. Street Cars. A few years later, horse-less carriages were invented. They were fun and fabulous for the very wealthy, but automobile makers could clearly see that they were not going to become the mode of transportation for the populous. This was because cars were very expensive to buy and operate, and, even more notably, the ordinary citizens of American cities had their transportation needs met: by street cars. Or called trolleys in some places. They were efficient and universally used. Need to go to another city? People took the train. Until a few automobile manufacturers, some of the wealthiest people in the country, purchased street car lines and train routes and purposefully and systematically tore them up. Need to buy a car now.

Question for today: what story are we buying right now, that makes perfect sense to us in this moment, is actually a crazy example of the tail wagging the dog to further some one's nefarious purposes?

Dover publishing--good stuff

I'm a fan of Dover Publishing. Dover books are, by design, very inexpensive, and they cover a huge variety of topics. Their children books, both for reading and for crafting, are wonderful to behold. But they've got stuff for grownups, too. They also produce an extensive collection of clip art--beautiful. I'm on an e-mail list with them, and about once a month they send me news of their latest in clip art, along with a few free samples (pictured here). Good fun. You can sign up by sending an e-mail to DoverEditors@doverpublishing.com. Or check out their website for yourself here.

In honor of Earth Day

Here's website that it appears everyone has discovered but me--until now! It has a very young, urban, hip feel. I feel a little bit of a visitor from another country on this site, but I still love it. Have a look around. Happy Earth Day!

http://treehugger.com/

Artist Trading Cards

Have you encountered this phenomenon? I think I know some creative souls who would really enjoy being a part of this. Google "artist trading cards" and you'll come up with lots to look at. I like this one: http://www.artjunction.org/atcs.php

Story of the little house, continued

If you've been reading this blog since, oh, more or less the beginning, then you may remember that there's been construction going on across the street from me. There was a little brick house there, a 1950's ranch that matched, exactly, every other house on this street. But the old woman who lived there, Carmen Wilkenson, a retired elementary school teacher, reading teacher, children's book author (as far as I can tell, a kindred spirit and I wish so much I met her) died just before we moved in across the street from her.

Her house was accidentally flooded by its negligent caretakers, and unsalvageable, it was demolished.

Then the construction began. Once it looked like this.

I have to tell you, it's been a long six months for the neighborhood. While there wasn't anything especially surprising about the constancy of loading, unloading, trucks, people, and noise, a few things have surprised me. There have been a great many crews--the roof guys, the siding guys, the garage door guys, the wall board guys, the landscaping guys....and on and on. Some have made more of an attempt than others to restrain their noise and presence in our neighboohood. When it was cold, the indoor crews started their generator around 7am, and it stayed on until 7pm most nights, along with their bright, bright lights. Some have parked right in front of my house, eating lunch in their car, doors open to get air and block the sidewalk, talking loudly and occasionally spitting. Some have taken more notice of us than others, stopping to observe my coming and going from my car. Once I stopped in my living room, idly thinking of something else and observing the growing house outside our picture window, when I realized that a member of the crew was likewise paused, and staring right into my window. We were having something of a staredown. I thought I'd wait him out, remind him of who was at work and who was in the "privacy" of her own home. But, after a second or two, I turned first. The most recent crew, the landscape guys, have brought along with them a radio and have appointed themselves the neighborhood DJs. Needless to say, I'm so glad to see that they seem to be nearing completion.

I took this photo a few minutes ago. And yes, that's a toilet on the front porch of the new (million dollar) house across the street. There's something about that toilet that spurred me to write this rather whiny post. Why couldn't they leave it in the garage? Or in the entryway? Could they throw the neighborhood a bone and try to keep a semblance of aesthetic grace? I hope it's a joke, something meant to get a laugh from another crew member, and not just complete unconsciousness.

Whining now complete. We'll now return to our usually scheduled programming.