Weekend

We had a great day Saturday with Sandy, Mike and Momoko. We had a simple yet sumptuous lunch which highlighted our farm veggies. We looked at Sandy and Mike's vacation pics and caught up with Momoko a bit about her two months in Paris.

Then we drove over to a nearby park and rode the paddle boats! It was hot, sunny, sweaty fun. After some iced goodies to cool down, we strolled around the lake and saw an egret of all things (this was a suburban park), a turtle, and took a break to clamber onto a wonderful, branchy tree.

I awoke the next morning to a wonderful aroma wafting through the bedroom. First and I wondered to each other what the source could be (he likes to wait for me to get out of bed to get out of bed himself and was mildly chagrined at my late awakening---Cap let me sleep in :-) Kinder, First and I wandered into the kitchen to this:


Cap invited Danielle and co. over for crepes and we ate alfresco on the patio. It's rare that all four of us adults get to relax together and it was very nice. Then they invited us to the lake. Kinder and Cap went and had a blast. First had a low grade fever and was forced to stay home. We had a quiet and productive afternoon. We spent abut two hours cleaning his and Kinder's room---one of those true cleanings.

And, I made a decision. I upgraded our cable tv service to include HBO and dvr (like Tivo but built into your digital cable system). Our promotional billling price for our bare bones service was about to come to an end and because of the company's smart/sneaky service structure, we could have paid $20 more a month for the same bare bones or upgrade for $29 more a month. HBO and BBC America, here I come!

The dvr is an experiment. My plan is not to watch more tv, per se, but to watch when it is convenient for me. So, with the dvr, instead of watching entertaining Food Network filler while I wait for Rescue Me to come on at 10:00, I can chill in some other way, go to bed at 10:00 and watch Rescue Me some other day at 8:00...

The kids are snuggling down for the night. Time for the night time blessing.

Kb toys

A shout out to them and a great local store manager. They accepted my return. So, two opened and used deluxe Omnitrixes went back to them a day after purchase for a full cash refund ($50).

The boys handled it well, took it in stride, really. I think First was not surprised because he has consciousness about my "no handheld video games" policy. I think they also realized that they have a pretty good life as we drove from the mall directly to our local comic book store where one of their comics was waiting for them in our "hold" bin. This followed by an errand to our doctor's office and dropping into our bookstore which is two doors down from the doc's.

Our new books:

Kinder • Night of the New Magicians (Magic Treehous #35)

First • Stage Fright on a Summer Night (Magic Treehouse #25)

Äiti • Stardust (Neil Gaiman)

Japanese eggplant

My heart did a little joy dance when I picked up our veggies this week. Japanese eggplant! I cooked some up this morning for breakfast, just like my obaachan used to do for me when I would summer with her in Yokohama (every five years during my childhood). I told First my story of Japanese eggplant as he perched on a stool eating some yogurt.

The eggplant was so tender, especially the beautiful purple-with-a-touch-of-magenta skin. As I thought about the difference that fresh, organic produce harvested in small batches, makes, I realized a there-all-along-but-new-to-my-consciousness element of my memories of Obaachan's cooking. What Farmer John does, is what Obaachan did, though on a much smaller scale.

Obaachan had a big vegetable garden and most of the veggies she used to prepare her meals came directly from the ground a stone's throw from her kitchen. I never appreciated her garden as a kid. I was impressed by its size and location more than anything. It was on a piece of land, an outcropping, that was below the sight line of the house or yard. We would have to pick our way down a path hugging the wall of dirt on one side lest you lose your balance and tumble down into garden plot.

Once in the garden, I was a kid whose eyes began darting about imagining all the worst creepy crawly, multi-legged, madly stinging bugs just hiding under the next leaf, perched on the tendril just over my head.... It became all about being ready to defend myself against these cursed beasts of nature.

I'm glad that something positive stayed with me, the image of my grandmother planting a seed in me completes the whole picture, doesn't it. I have been acting on my desire to bring our kitchen and nourishment closer to the garden. We've been enjoying our cherry tomatoes, green beans, chives, basil and mint. Our weekly CSA share has brought us a wonderful variety of veggies and herbs.

But, man, not having air conditioning in the kitchen and my recent shoulder injury have really put a dent in my kitchen productivity. (Productivity in the kitchen is key in order to keep up with the summer harvesting!) I miss the central AC we had in Sac. The shoulder pain is completely gone, thankfully, but I think my range of motion and arm strength are going to be problems till my physical therapy gets going next week.

So, there have been a lot of hotdogs, frozen potato products, pizza, sushi, and coldcuts being consumed as of late. Thank goodness for Whole Foods where you can buy processed and prepared food that isn't as bad for one's health as what's available in the mainstream (and is gluten and casein-free!)

But, this morning, the Japanese eggplant returned me to a better place. Simple and whole nourishment. Thanks, Obaachan.

Serenity personality quiz

Your results:
You are Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic)

Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 90% Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 80% Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 80% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 70% Wash (Ship Pilot) 65% River (Stowaway) 50% Alliance 30% Inara Serra (Companion) 30% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 30% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 10% A Reaver (Cannibal) 0%

Medicine and physical healing are your game, but wooing women isn't a strong suit.

Click here to take the Serenity Personality Quiz

What were the chances, Chancer?

Chancer, a Clive Owen British tv series was next on my Netflix queue, but, how bizarre, a "short wait" for Chancer bumped Deadwood Season One Disc One ahead of it. Well, now I'll learn sooner than later what all the DW fuss is about.

And while I'm here, what are the chances that KB Toys will honor a toy return because the kids bought identical toys yesterday (the deluxe Omnitrix at $25 a pop using their own money) and I didn't realize until we were home and the kids were playing with them that they contain a tiny videogame and I have nixed the toys outright? Of course the toys are out of their packaging...

"Girl" talk

The orthopedist/sports medicine guy I saw yesterday? His last name is Filion. The physical therapy guy I'm going to see next week? His last name is Ruffalo. Too bad their first names aren't Nathan and Mark.

http://www.myspace.com/nathanfillion

http://markruffalo.net/

Oh, now I'm all hot and bothered. I had no idea Nathan Fillion had a mySpace page till I just googled him right now. Julie, are you reading this?

Record keeping/documentation/archiving

A focus for the first few months of the "school year" will be record keeping/documentation and archiving. As intuitive a person as I am, I want some sort of organized result of the kids' (and my) work. I trust myself (and Cap and the kids) completely in this endeavour of home learning, but I want to make sure that I have something to "show" for it on the other side. This will be useful for later schooling if the kids and/or we ever decide to go that route, as well as, for concerned family and friends. Most of us are primarily visual learners and having that visual can truly help to process and understand what it is we are being told/hearing.

I am thinking of large cardboard portfolios to collect the kids' 2D artwork for the year (browsing an art supply store...dangerous!) And some sort of binder system for various papers. Taking pictures and posting to the blog will also serve as documentation.

Since I am utilizing a bottom up approach, I'll be figuring out much as I go along. This is in line with my own learning style which is very kinesthetic. I learn by doing. It makes it harder to reign in the feelings of chaos that I sometimes feel. For, how can I bring about order when I don't yet know what I'm dealing with?

It is also the opposite of an institutional approach, which tends to be top down. Create goals and objectives (align them to state standards and standardized tests) and then disseminate the necessary information in the form of specific, structured, planned lessons. It is still sometimes hard for me to unharness my mind from this type of thinking having worked in schools as a teacher.

But, I don't have to answer to the state. And I don't have to "teach to the middle". The fact of the matter is, right now I have to go and get ready to drop the kids off at Danielle's and head out to my doctor's appt.

Telling time

Finally sat down with First for a few minutes to "work" on telling time. What this means is that instead of talking about how we can tell time on the fly, as the (plentiful) opportunities have arose over the past couple of months, I pulled out the Kumon book about telling time and we sat down at the table and flipped through it together.

I'm a sucker for these books. They're Japanese and appeal to a certain personal aesthetic. Something about the colors and quality of illustration. I usually pick them up at Barnes and Noble (they're more expensive than your run-of-the-mill workbooks, but when has that ever stopped me...I am willing to pay for quality).

We got to telling time to ten past the hour (noting the "minute" ticks on the clock face and how every time the minute was pointing to the number 1 it was five past the hour) when First stated that he was bored so we broke till next time. Kinder was chomping at the bit and wanted to write numbers in a fill-in-the-numbers chart from 1-60. The first chart I just sat back and let him go. During the second chart, I started gently correcting him (start forming the numbers from top to bottom, forming the number four by lifting the pencil rather than doing it etch-a-sketch style, using a pencil with a nicely sharpened point, etc.) Within a few minutes he was throwing himself on his bed yowling for me to stop.

Interesting, interesting.

South Africa/Stomp the Yard

Yesterday I faced a formidable pile of laundry which really needed to be folded in order to make the place halfway presentable for Danielle, Owen and Lukas. They are, frankly, used to the cluttered nature of our home and so halfway was really good enough :-)

The problem was that my shoulder prevents me from doing most things that require the use of two hands (my range of motion on the left side is limited to somewhere around elbow level). So in order to distract myself, I turned on the tv in the middle of the afternoon, something I haven't done for myself since having tv sentient kids.

I watched a show, I think it was called Globe Trekker, on a local PBS station. South Africa was being highlighted. Between my parents impending visit there (they leave Japan next week) and Anna's trip there in January, my interest in SA has increased as of late. Something I really liked about the show was that the two correspondents were themselves from South Africa.

Then last night I watched Stomp The Yard. Anna had left it behind for me to watch from a collection of contemporary films about blackness that she was viewing for potential teaching material (I'd seen Rize already and decided to pass on White Chicks). The "stomping" or line stepping in the movie (an artform performed and practiced by fraternities and sororities at African-American colleges around the country [an offshoot of a larger movement of dance]), had some notable similarities to the communicative movements/stomping that diamond miners in South Africa were demonstrating in the travel doc I had watched earlier in the day.

The miner stomping reminds me of hollering. So interesting how different parts of the body have been employed by cultures across the world for similar purposes/functions. And that had I not happened to catch Globe Trekker, I wouldn't have had this connective and contextualizing piece of information which expanded my viewing of Stomp The Yard in a critically meaningful way.

A movie we saw recently, Linda Linda Linda, was a Japanese movie set during the days of a high school festival (bunkasai). Bunkasai are a big deal in Japanese school culture and there really is no equivalent here in the States. The gist of the story is that a band comprised of girls needs a new singer last minute and an exchange student from Korea is randomly recruited. Cap loved it. I did too, but wondered what it would be like for someone completely unfamiliar with the culture and language of Japan to experience the movie.

The shoulder is starting to feel better and better with each new day. My appt with the orthopedist is in a few hours.

My breakfast of choice lately has been the Whole Foods brand organic granola with fruit and nuts. And, we have switched from soy milk to rice and almond milk. First and Cap are resisting the barley challenge (Rice Dream has a tiny bit of barley in it). Pacific Foods has started an unsweetened, organic almond milk line---yippeee! In the back of my mind I think about making my own granola and milks, but for now, it stays on the back burner.

I pulled out my two John Holt books yesterday (Teach Your Own and Instead Of Education). I want to read through them and possibly pick up Why Children Fail. I think for First a more unschooling approach is going to be the way to go this year (meaning more unschooling than Waldorf---last year was essentially an unschooled year for him). But, when I think of Kinder, I see him loving a very Waldorf Kindergarten "curriculum". More on this soon...

Weekend update

We had a great weekend with Cameron, Julie and Mike. Cam is about a year younger than Kinder and the three of them had a lot of fun together. Cam loves playing with trains, dinos, water, and running around the apartment chasing kids so he fit right in. It's always nice seeing Kinder and First rediscovering old joys like their train set.

We also went to the zoo. The train ride, crocodile, cougars and otter were the highlights. It was summer hot, but of course the kids didn't mind and the adults caught shade when they could.

I kept my shoulder pain at bay with loads of ibuprofen, resorting to round the clock dosing. It is strange to suddenly feel so restricted. I took advantage of Cap being home for the weekend and really tried not to do anything requiring the use of two hands. He was a trooper and picked up the slack despite having missed a work deadline and having company over.

I loved walking into the kitchen late on Friday night and seeing him and Mike (friends from childhood) playing Blokus and listening to the Sox game.

My shoulder feels a bit better today. I have an appointment with an orthopedist tomorrow and an acupuncturist next week.

First lost the last of his loose teeth late last night (that's his tooth box in his hand). Off to put their pet eggs in some water. They should hatch in 12-24 hours. Thanks Julie :-)

The gall bladder

Yesterday I went to Kelly's for a massage. I am having rotator cuff problems for the first time ever so to Kelly's I went in hopes of getting some pain relief. (The pain roared back last night and this morning. 800 mgs of Ibu is keeping it in check for the moment.)

The massage felt great, but not surprisingly, the best little nugget came in the form of the question posed by a gifted bodyworker: do I have trouble making decisions?

I thought, no I don't, but then it hit me, maybe I do.... I've always thought of myself as someone who has trouble "sticking" to decisions I make. Maybe there's another way of looking at that. Maybe, I think I am making a decision when in fact I am still in vacillation about it, and that's why I change my mind on what seems like a regular basis.

Interesting, interesting. Oh, and it comes down to the gall bladder. The sister of the liver, which has been pinpointed as a major trouble spot for me by many practitioners over the years.

So, the blog is back. I thought I was going to take a break, but I have changed my mind. There you have it.

Big, huge, loving congrats to Marci and Rich who welcomed Ismael home this week. He's a beauty and I can't wait to hold him.

Taking a break

I've decided to take a break from blogging.

Yesterday, I thought I'd like to put our tv down in storage for a year and Cap and the kids have agreed, albeit with mixed feelings.

As far as blogging, I think it's been a good way to ground me the past year as we made a big move and settled into a new home, neighborhood, community. It helped me feel connected to family and friends, many of whom I do not have regular phone or in person contact with. Sometimes, it simply made me feel connected, even if it was to etherspace.

But, as we approach our first anniversary of leaving and arriving, I've been feeling more aware and reflective of my personal well-being. I don't know if it's that I had some blinders on to help me through the year or if it's a natural progression of having more time to think about myself, but I ain't liking some of what I see and feel.

I cycle in and out of feeling tired (often), a touch depressed (sometimes), and asexual (almost always). This is nothing new and has been consistent for years. More recently though, I've been realizing that my imagination feels very...small and dried up.

One of my homeschooling kid friends that I've met this last year took a survey a few months ago of the moms that had gathered for Fiber Arts at her house: "what are your dreams?" As each mom ticked off her answers, a feeling of dread and sadness washed over me. I had no idea. I had no answer for this fresh-faced, wonderfully alive and inquisitive girl of nine or so.

This has stayed with me. And I thank her.

As we are in a break of sorts from the "school year" routine, as we begin our second year here (with no move planned in the near future!), as the kids grow older (and particularly as First enters his next phase of childhood), as I stand perched at what I hope is the second half of my life, it is time to take stock of what I want for myself and to go about attaining that.

So, a break from tv, a break from blogging. More time clearing the pathways to help myself feel and be more connected to my true self. For me to reclaim that self, my relationship, my dreams.

Thanks to those of you kept up with me/us by reading this blog. I do want to construct some sort of family website to share photos and updates of our goings on. I'll let you know when that happens.

Love and peace.

Our quilt

Sandy (my sister) made this quilt for us. She used our chuppah, which was orchestrated by Diane and put together cooperatively by a clutch of us on a wood floor in our apartment on Bellis Circle.

Our chuppah (as it stood during the commitment ceremony) had lots of mementos dangling around the edges of it, sent to us by friends and family around the world who were unable to join us for the event. The ones made of cloth were incorporated into the quilt, the ones of paper are saved in a box.

For over ten years, this quilt was treasured privately in various containers, shuttled around with every move. It has known the insides of many closets. I recently decided to actually use it. (I'd always thought of it as my first "heirloom" piece and felt a fierce protectiveness over it.)

Now it can begin the process of living life with us...and one day join the global pantheon of tattered, beloved, beautiful quilts, which are my favorite kind.

A busy month for the tooth fairy

First lost another tooth. Second one this week, third one this month. He was completely surprised when a routine wiggle yielded a tooth in the hand. The other top front one is loose, the last of the four.

20 questions

Today the kids and I played 20 questions while eating lunch. I don't know if losing his teeth has anything to do with it, but all of a sudden, First is taking FOREVER to finish a meal. There is a kind of oh-he-used-to-do-this quality to the experience...

Anyway, we played a few rounds and then Kinder stumped us. He was clearly psyched and it was a nice ending to the meal. (Actually, First was still going, but I ushered Kinder into the bathroom to wash up, attempting to signal to First the possibility of wrapping it up.)

As Kinder washed his hands, he glanced up at me and said with a shy smile, something like, "isn't it cool that the youngest person won?" Such a simple and profound statement of who he is and what it feels like to be him.

(Cap and I are both first borns and we sometimes think about how we will never be able to completely and truly relate to Kinder in terms of birth order experience.)

In between

The stormy showers of last night were not it. The cold front is coming, but not until tonight, I guess. So, though it won't crest over 90 as it has the last few days, it will get up to almost 90 and be humid today. Again.

Cap has had the car this week driving himself to WO High for the beginning of his summer gig.

The cicadas started their death song in the yard this morning. As if I had never heard it before and as if I was brought back to summers in Japan all at once.

Also this morning, Kinder is writing Monkeys in Moonlight and First is writing Captured on Christmas. These are their Magic Treehouse stories. I am their scribe, the words are theirs. The illustrations are combinations of their own and photocopies from the books.

Janet and her family will be coming by tomorrow for a visit. I am eager to spend time with them and for the kids to get to play with each other.

Cap surprised me with a bunch of roses yesterday.

I made what will probably prove to be the last batch of scape pesto for the season. There were no new scape in our veggies this week.

Blueberries are apprently the unofficial state fruit. They are now in season. I bought two boxes at the farmer's market and they were indeed tasty.

I spent some time on the Waldorf at Home discussion forum yesterday. That felt good. Like I was doing some of what I've set out to do this summer.

Had an orange passionfruit natural soda at Danielle's yesterday. It was delicious.

Talked to Jamie for an hour last night. Some interesting stuff about introverts.

First fell asleep quickly last night. It has been a long time coming. Losing his tooth was key, I think.

Cap says he wants to stay till he finishes his tenure run. He's becoming more connected to the adult literacy/education community locally and state-wide. I'm glad for him and am okay with four more years here.

Been craving ice cream the past few nights, I think it's the weather. But, I've been pretty successfully staying away from dairy (except for those "chocolate bricks" Cap brought back from Japan). I've been making do with soy ice cream with my favorite add-in, peanut butter.

Cutting down on processed soy products. Having rice dream with my cereal and tea. Feeling kind of foolish that now, when the kids are finally acclimated to drinking soy milk as a source of calcium, I'm thinking of switching them over to rice. I was a sucker for Silk's skillful niche carving of the cow milk alternative market.

Janet just called. Their flight was cancelled and now they're not flying in till late Friday night. Bummer.

Mary and co. are headed to Ireland Sunday. I'll miss them.

Tempers are shortening here. Maybe I should put the AC on. Kinder's been punching again lately and First has been less patient.

First keeps coming round to the bowl of tamari almonds by the computer to snack.

I'm going to go download the song used at the beginning of Rescue Me. Love it.

Over the hump

We had First's "family" party on Sunday and his first "big" tooth fell out yesterday (we both had a moment of "oh no" wondering if it had gone down his gullet with some Koala Crisps --- it didn't). There is palpable relief in the air as these milestones now begin receding in the rear view mirror.


This picture is such a reflection of our DNA. Both sides of our family embrace the joyful preparation and sharing of copious amounts of food at celebrations. I do feel a distinct sense of accomplishment that this particular spread, in honor of our GFCF kid, is completely gluten and casein-free.

Summer solstice

We celebrated the longest day of the year at a local pond with friends. Our picnic supper was interrupted by a spot of rain (we ate standing, remaining completely dry, under some trees), but we saw a lot of wildlife (deer, rabbits, butterflies, ducks and ducklings) and had a nice hike around the pond with its varied ecosystems (sheer rock face, lily pads, grassy meadow, stone bridge).


I adore watching my kids be in their element in nature. And when Lukas crowed out, "let's do this again next year!," I got all warm and fuzzy. I am relishing this reality of staying put... A year ago we were in such transition.

The birds and the bees

The kids and I were conversing yesterday when Kinder asked me, completely in context and without guile, "how can your body know to stop making babies then?" I had just stated that I didn't want to be pregnant again, that I was content with my two.

Gulp.

Letting my next few sentences trail off into vapor didn't quite work, they were pretty curious. So I blundered my way through an explanation involving eggs ands seeds and absence of opportunity...and we moved on.

I discovered a couple of weeks ago that Silke is doing sex ed with her kids, culling from a UU curriculum she picked up. Danielle mentioned a book today in comic book (!) format. It is important to me that the kids are informed and comfortable about their own bodies and sexuality, and sex in general. I guess it's time for me to begin putting my money where my mouth is.

Garden pics

Lavender, the incredibly bountiful mint, echinacea, and bee balm (in the back left corner, which I had to pinch almost all of the leaves off of because of mold).






Basil, nearly decimated coriander (cilantro), and chives. I replanted the coriander hoping to rejuvenate it. If this doesn't work, I'm going to replace it with a new plant. The chives were divine in a smoked salmon sandwich at lunch today, tucked in with lettuce from the farm. Mmmm.




The mighty tomatoes, a gift from Danielle. I am stunned at how heartily these are growing.

















Kinder's sunflowers. So far, so good. I can't wait to see these bloom.
















The amazing beans. I'll be staking these soon. One of the sprouts/buds was gone this morning, the stem now sheared off at the top. I imagine a creature went for it.












For a gardening novice, self-identified "black" thumb, and fan of the natural world, I am humbled, awed, and made really happy by the goings on in our little corner of Earth.

First day of summer

A gorgeous, perfect day to celebrate the first day of summer. It dawned on me today that one of the unique and satisfying weather features of the northeast is the absolute clarity and refreshment that comes after a period of mugginess. There is an energy in this that I appreciate.

While the kids played, I worked on the solstice bracelets I'm giving to them and our friends with whom we will be celebrating tonight. We will be driving out to a pond to have a picnic dinner and frolic until the sun sets.

Listening to joyful sign

The song, not the cd. This was by far my favorite song that Girlyman sang at the concert we went to in December.

Finally got "Unconditional Parenting" by Alfie Kohn yesterday. This is a book that I've been interested in reading for over a year, but hem here haw there and now it's in my hands. I read the introduction last night. Cap was tucking the kids in with a tanuki story and I had a full evening ahead of me. I started tearing up as I read, mostly PMS, but in part feeling like I was being beckoned by a supportive and understanding hand.

So, I put it down deciding to wait for a more clear headed time and watched Amores Perros instead (finding time for a 2 hour plus movie is tough these days) and followed it with a Rescue Me chaser.

Reading while walking

I watched in delight, recognition and awe as First read "High Tide In Hawaii" (Magic Treehouse #28) as he walked from the bookstore to the car. This included crossing two streets. Talk about being in the zone. Much of my delight has to do with the fact that First often isn't in the zone (as opposed to his brother who pretty much lives there).

We did go to the library this morning (where they found four or five MT titles they were interested in), but then I bartered a new book each for getting adjusted, the chiropractor's office being about a hundred feet from the bookstore.

Many blissful moments here. My adjustment was fantastic, I got to snooze for a bit this afternoon under a wonderful breeze, our Farmer John cache was exciting (bok choy! peas! baby daikon! and drumroll please...more garlic scapes!), and my man is home.

Cap's back

Big out breath :-)

I went to bed at 10:00 which hadn't occurred the whole time he was gone and Kinder slept till past 7:30 which is virtually unheard of. Cap surprised First and I by getting out of bed before Kinder and the three of us hung out and talked in the livingroom (First and I spooning on the couch under a throw, Cap tucked into the beanbag chair) about planets and stars and about all the trains Cap rode while he was in Japan.

Laundry, unpacking, chiropractor, Target, bank, CSA, thank you cards, haircuts, and staying cool are on the agenda today.

Heartbeat

Kinder has been listening to my heartbeat lately, his warm and sturdy five and a half year old body nestling right up to mine as he places his head against my chest.

Now, I know I can be a bit of a mouth breather at times, but I burst out laughing when today, as he listened for my heartbeat, he exclaimed, "stop breathing, I can't hear your heart!"

Pondering potatoes

At dinner tonight, First was munching away on what will hereafter be known as "potatoes Danielle" (red potatoes washed and sliced, briefly boiled, then sauteed in olive oil with fresh herbs of your choice---in this case Farmer John's oregano).

He came upon a little pre-sprout bud and wondered what it was. I wasn't sure what it was technically and first translated from what I know it as in Japanese "me" and said it was "an eye". Clearly an unexpected and unpalatable response. Then I realized that it was probably not "me" meaning "eye", but "me" meaning "sprout" and offered that up.

I asked aloud whether it might be considered a seed, but then First reminded me that pieces of potato can be planted to produce potato plants, so potatoes are seeds themselves.

Then he said, "then where did the first potato come from?"

Pause.

Pause.

"Mutation?," he offered, and we cocked our heads to ponder and finished dinner.

Song of the humpback whale

The other night, First was having trouble falling asleep and we ended up watching about 15 minutes of Planet Earth on tv. He heard the song of the humpback whale for the first time ever.

A few mintues ago, he asked me to hand him the humpback whale so that he could play with it in the bath. "What does it sound like again?," he asked.

I did my best impression and he picked up the tone as my song trailed off.

I love this kind of moment, a piece falling into place, a spiral looping around...

Melinda doolittle

I bought a Whitney Houston song, "I Believe In You And Me", off of iTunes the other day (a rare occurrence but it was fun to do some shopping this way, I can see this becoming more of a habit).

I watched American Idol for the first time this season. One week, the judges and producers of the show chose songs for the contestants to sing. Apparently, the idea was to throw Melinda Doolittle a curve ball by assigning her a Whitney tune. Houston is supposedly so technically brilliant, vocally, that most folks on Idol maintain a secure distance from her songs.

Melinda sang this song and MOVED me. The Whitney version, which I bought to put on my 2007 comp isn't the same. I'll have to keep my eye on the Idol website to see if I can buy Melinda's version.

Other tunes bought that day:

Phantom Limb by The Shins
Joyful Sign by Girlyman
The Picture by Son Volt
Champagne Supernova by Matt Pond PA

And then two days later:

You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You by Dean Martin
Box Of Rain by Grateful Dead
Rhode Island Is Famous For You by Erin McKeown
Shine On by Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem

Magic treehouse the next day

Kinder has been working on his first Magic Treehouse book for the last hour or so. It's called, "Genies before Driving". He's made the cover and written a table of contents. He is cutting his pieces of paper down to the size of the books themselves. He wants to dictate the story to me now.

Monopoly jr.

Jay and Amy gave First Monopoly Jr. for his birthday. He's digging it.

We played this morning after coming in from gardening and play. Kinder joined us for the first time. First was the banker for the first time. This is the first board game that we've played with that I have specific memories playing as a kid myself. (We didn't have a ton of board games growing up and a lot of the board games we have are cooperative, non-competitive ones.)

I was never that into Monopoly. Life, now that was my game.

Garlic scape

We joined our local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and I am excited.

Nestled amongst the first week's veggies were something I had never seen before: (garlic) scapes. Danielle was over and we pondered them briefly before moving on to oohing and ahhing the sprigs of oregano, the radishes and the three varieties of lettuce (she took home the red leaf).

Here's a link to someone's blog that has pictures of scapes. We are digital camera-less until Monday when Cap returns from Japan.

http://yesyellocello.blogspot.com/2004/06/june-scapes.html

I did some googling last night and discovered a recipe for garlic scape pesto. I made some this afternoon minus the Parmesan cheese. It looks fantastic, and would taste it too, had I not dumped too much salt in there. Ach, well, what are you going to do. I'm still going to eat it...sparingly.

Last night I made a salad with the romaine lettuce from the farm, an avocado, and a lemony dressing. I tossed on some raw, chopped scape and it was wonderful. I got the recipe off the Mothering website the other day.

I love the feelings of connectivity and satisfaction I get knowing this food is so fresh. It was grown and tended to by a local farmer, dug out of the ground and put on the back of his truck, delivered to my neighborhood the very same day (give or take a day?), and ends up in my belly as early as that night. I love it.

I also love being nudged into being better about using the ingredients I have to prepare our meals. Purple Dragon (a national co-op that has a number of local "pods"---we belonged to one from fall to spring and will most likely rejoin once our local harvesting season is over) did this too, but only to a certain extent. I still found myself tossing produce that had been sitting in the fridge too long (they do drop-offs once every two weeks instead of every week).

I am completely inspired by our access to this local, organic, seasonal produce.

The magic treehouse

There is a book series called The Magic Treehouse. It's been around for over ten years and the series is nearly forty books strong. When I was in Sacramento, Malachi, who had shared with me how much he loves the books, gave me his copy of book number one, to give to First and Kinder. He did this in the car, as he and Erika were driving me to the Amtrak station.

The kids were intrigued, but didn't bite right away. We went to Will's house for a visit a month later and during our stay, the kids saw that he had some of these books, too. Then, last week, I took Kinder to our neighborhood (independent) bookstore so that he could buy a birthday gift for his brother. He chose a boxed set of three or four Magic Treehouse books. He wasn't too bothered by the fact that the store didn't have book number two.

Once the dust settled on First's birthday, I discovered him lying on my bed, his nose in a book. Then it was lying on the livingroom couch. Then perched on the stairs going up from the bathroom to his room. He was hooked. Not since Uncle Scrooge and his capers has a series caught his attention like this.

Kinder loves the books, too, but it's a different experience for him. He can't yet read them to himself and he doesn't get some of what's going on (the books are considered second grade reading level).

The narcissist in me is pleased and feeling all is right in the world. Lying around with my nose stuck in a book and my imagination galloping around is how I spent much of my childhood.

The worrier in me is girding for the next storm of consumption. My kids are part of the "collect them all!" army of kids. I think part of it's genetic, Cap and I are both known for our completist tendencies. I also think part of it is learned. We have made choices along our parenting path that have led our boys to have the biggest collections of Thomas, Cars, Knex, and the latest craze, Ben 10, of anyone we know.

The thing is, although their interest may wane in their older toys and things, their true affection for them hasn't. Their consumption is not mindless or frenetic. Their exposure to tv commercials is limited to virtually none and because they do not attend school, they aren't as privvy to current fads and kid culture as some of their same age peers.

I'm wondering if we're on a precipice, and if I am catching a glimpse of hundreds of books to come. When I was growing up, my mom took us to the library regularly and I took out piles of books. After we moved during my third grade year, our walk to the library was easily a half mile. (I don't know how she did it, I am the oldest of three.)

During high school I started buying books. My dad would take us to the big Barnes and Noble in downtown Manhattan and let us buy a bag of books each once or twice a year. It was also during this time that I earned a regular wage baby-sitting and I would buy myself trade paperbacks at the bookstore on Austin Street. During college I bought a lot of books using my parents' credit card and I've never looked back.

My own consumption of books has slowed down drastically since having kids. I stil love to read, but rarely do. My preferred reading style is to read for hours on end, having personal reading marathons and finishing books in a day or two. Very old habits are hard to break.

So, now that Kinder and First have started hanging out with Jack and Annie in the magic treehouse, I wonder how the future will unfold as I smile and remember my reading past.

It was so cute...

today I grabbed some leftover pizza out of the fridge for Kinder and he said, "can you air condition it for me?"

Nighttime misery

First has been having trouble falling asleep for a few weeks.

Possible culprits:

• four loose teeth after a drought of a year (one came out last week)

• his recent birthday...anticipation of the unknown is unbearable for him sometimes, mostly it is just plain uncomfortable

• Cap has been away on a 2 week research trip to Japan

• the change of seasons and shifts in weather...after two summers in hot, but dry Sac, the humidity here is a drag

Rescue Remedy and Rescue Sleep (Bach flower essences) have helped some, as has Calmes Forté 4 Kids. The three of us have been sleeping together in the big bed, which helps, too (though not so much in the falling asleep realm because I have not been lying down with them for any length of time). The routines of reading before bed and our nighttime blessings help. Baths help.

This afternoon I told him I thought his nerves were shot (I had just discovered that he'd had a very loose poop). He was curious about the term and I felt my descriptions of what I think can happen to our systems and how our bodies can react during times of stress actually made sense to him.

He fell asleep a bit easier tonight, for the second night in a row. Still fearful and wondering why his mind wouldn't just let him be, stlll unwilling to tell me what it was that he was seeing and thinking about in his head that frightened him so.

I feel guilty about not being able to just get in bed with him, but when Cap is away, I tend to stay up much later than I should, feeling like I need to be awake to hold down the fort, be on guard and protect the homestead. I go into hyper "on" mode when I am temporarily single parenting and the fatigue often kicks in between 7:30 and 8:00. Sometimes it's visceral, how necessary it feels to extricate myself from the kids whether they are ready for it or not.

Homemade rice crackers

Felicia was very conscientious of First's food allergies and always had rice crackers (as opposed to wheat) for dipping things like chive hummus and crushed pineapple with mint. (She also prepared a vegan version of anything that called for cheese or butter).

At our last class, she made homemade rice crackers because she discovered too late that she didn't have any on hand. Well, Kinder and First loved them (as did everyone there) and so, inspired, I made some this afternoon. A grey skied chilly afternoon just calls for baking.

I worked off of Felicia's non-recipe (she's one of those who dashes things off in the kitchen off the top of her head) and this recipe I got via googling from Mothering magazine's website: http://www.mothering.com/sections/recipes/crackers.html

I used white rice flour, leftover quinoa (instead of rice), olive oil and sesame seeds (instead of flax seeds).

The crackers were yummy...very comforting.

What a great alternative to paying for a package (with its serving of plastic and paper waste) of (highly) processed crackers. The kids were not wild about them (yet), but this is something I will make again and again. The possibilities for varying grains and seasonings, and adding herbs from the garden, are endless. Homemade crackers...something I can truly get behind.

Our garden

I just went around the apartment closing windows. I'm that cold. What erratic weather for mid-June. This picture was not taken today. We had our sweatshirts on over our clothes today.

This morning we went to the garden store on the other side of the parkway. I got great directions from Danielle, who also recommended the place. I loved it. It was another cloudy day and the vibrant and varied colors of the flowering plants, herbs and bushes, as we walked up to the shop, were a satisfying sight.

It was cool to hear the kids name dropping the herbs they are now familiar with. We picked up some basil and a pot and bamboo stakes for our budding bean plants. The tender (yet so powerful!) shoots have burst forth from the dirt in the little peat pot and seemed ready for transplanting (though now I'm worried that it's going to be cold for them tonight, maybe too cold).

Once home I transplanted the beans and planted the basil. I moved the echinacea over next to the agastache so the basil could all be together. I harvested some basil and mint and made some pesto and mint tea. I think a mini-food processor is in my future. It was SO gratifying to be able to use the free chopper (I got from Tupperware when we lived in Plympton and have never had the opportunity to use) for something, anything, but it just ain't cutting it for the pesto (yes it's a pun). I've been carting that chopper around for years... The mint tea was lovely with the new batch of local honey that was in at Terra last week.

The tomatoes are popping out, I think First counted nine on just one of the plants. They're still small and green, but look promising. The beans have been amazing to watch. Felicia said they'd be satisfying because they grow so fast. And next year, strawberries. For sure.

Off to make dinner. How shall I have the pesto...

Female plumbing

A couple of hours ago I felt like I was hit by a truck of tired. I've been a bit more sleep deprived than normal and woke this morning rather abruptly when I registered that my side was getting wet, absorbing rare-these-days pull-up overflow from the bottom of one of my sleeping children.

But, it was fast, this just-let-me-crawl-into-bed-for-a-few-hours feeling that came over me. Not a run-of-the-mill fatigue. And a leftover chocolate birthday cupcake has done little to perk my system up.

Then I remembered, I must have ovulated.

I just started taking Barlean's Essential Woman again after a talk with Anna two weekends ago (during which time we saw Passing Strange at the Public Theater in NYC---highly recommend it). I used to take it religiously, but then, feeling like my PMS was changing, I stopped.

Well, lately, I've noticed that my womanly hormones seem to have shifted again. Now, I feel like I did when I first got pregnant (both times), when I ovulate. Sleepy, sleepy, sleepy. I also have more intense downslides into claustrophobic jaggedy ear-ringing fury. Rescue remedy (Bach's flower essences), which I've always had on hand for the kids, has become a handy remedy for me. Anna reminded me about the effectiveness of evening primrose oil to soothe PMS symptoms, so I started taking the Barlean's, which is a mix of evening primrose and flaxseed oils, again.

It's amazing to feel so connected to the planet as my hormones shift and another egg is released. More often than not, I say with a toss of my head, "I can't wait for menopause so I can be done with all of this". But, I wonder...what will it feel like to have nature unspool the chord that binds, when I have no more biological function to serve?

Felicia's garden

First and I made it to three of the six herb gardening classes that Felicia, a homeschooling mom of two, had in her garden. Kinder joined us for two of those classes because Cap wasn't around to hang with him at home, but it was really "First's" class.

Felicia's garden was inspiring in many ways. She and her family have obviously taken time to design and nurture different areas of the garden. It is truly a haven...you completely forget about the busy street that their house is on when back in the yard. For us, it was about a 40-45 minute drive (actually longer on two of the three trips because I got lost), but that too, would just immediately be forgotten once we walked through the garden gate.

We now have a container garden in our communal backyard. We have chives, lavender, mint, cilantro, bee balm, basil, echinacea, sunflowers, petunias, green beans and tomatoes growing and being clumsily nudged to grow. The cilantro is starting to look wan and slightly ill and the basil is not bursting forth as I imagined it would. Which is unfortunate because the pesto scrambled eggs I fixed for myself last week were AMAZING.

I think many of our leafy friends would rather have more sun than our yard can give them. We'll see how they do. Next year, I'd like to plant strawberries. The class got to sample Felicia's crop this year (planted in a container) and they were yummy.

Another mental experiment I'll be conducting this summer is to see how our mostly organic plants in completely organic soil do compared to Renee's in-ground garden of veggies nurtured by Miracle-Gro.

Felicia is doing a butterfly class which I'm pretty sure First would have dug, but he was not interested and I decided that I wasn't interested in the long drive again...at least not enough to put up more of a fight to try the class. He is looking forward to it again next spring though, my young gardener.

Birth day

Today is First's 7th birthday. It was lovely to wake up in bed with both boys (Cap is in Japan) and start the day unwrapping presents together in bed.

It was a sweet day. Watching the kids play (he invited Owen, Lukas, Anna and Lukas), the very satisfying sushi platter from Whole Foods (cucumber rolls and salmon rolls), lots of Ben 10 toys including the very rare 6 inch Benwolf, a lingering visit with Uncle Takai, Auntie Lisa and Ellie, the cutest almost four month old I know, and now, unencumbered play time. His final gift of the day is that he can choose when to go to bed tonight.

No pics, Cap has the digital camera with him.

I have been watching back-to-back episodes of Freaks and Geeks lately and loving them. Can't wait to see Knocked Up.

Seven, seven, seven...it just feels like the beginning of a new chapter.

Learning at any age

This is the drain in our bathroom sink. It's pretty and it's called "Pegasus". And it's been my on again off again nemesis since we moved in nearly ten months ago. It has been a historically slow to drain drain. I don't remember if it was when we arrived, my guess is probably not.

I've never been learned in many of the practical arts, such as plumbing. So, as the drain became slow, I had to teach myself how to work with this situation and remedy it. I knew I didn't want to go the way of toxic liquid chemicals if I could help it. I tried a non-toxic pressurized declogger and it helped enough for weeks here and weeks there (by draining semi-slowly instead of really slowly). But, it never got to the root of the problem, which could be because I was using it incorrectly,

I discovered that enzyme decloggers work for organic matter, such as food, in kitchen sinks, but weren't recommended for bathroom sinks. I tended to think that the culprits in the bathroom sink were semi-regular showers of facial stubble and therefore would be more than enzymes could handle.

I was, I felt, in the unfortunate position of being the only person in the house who really cared that the sink was slow to drain and so would find myself fuming and glaring at the sink at odd points in the day, directing my pent up frustrations at an inanimate object, in a tiled arena that included a cast of two.

I have believed in the idea of learning as a sideways spiral for a long time...so long that I don't rmember anymore where I first learned about this theory. We learn things through our senses whether it is via seeing, hearing, gestalt, etc. then life continues and we don't necessarily activate that learning for awhile. But, then, the spiral curves around again and what we learned jumps forward and is applied to a new situation and voilá, synthesis, eureka, and then life moves on...

It occurs to me now that the Waldorf way of working with singular academic subject areas at a time (main lesson blocks) while others lie dormant for a period is an expression of this theory.

Today, I put into action something I've been thinking about for awhile. Years ago, I learned from Wendy and Stefan that one can use an untwisted wire hanger to unclog a toilet. That made an impression on me, the MacGyverness of it, using something at hand and simply reworking it into a handy tool. I plucked a wire hanger from the closet, untwisted it, and got to work.

In the end it wasn't the wire hanger that did the trick, but working with it and then going deeper into the process and experimenting that yielded ultimate success. I had conquered the drain and it was sweet victory.

(For some reason, I can't get the drain stopper out of the sink. I've looked under the sink and fiddled around with the stopper with the wire hanger, but have yet to figure out how to remove it. I dug out some very small pieces of gunk with the wire, but no where near what I imagined I would find. In the end, I discovered while manipulating the lever controlling the up and down movement of the drain stopper under the sink, that there was some sort of seal that was forming somewhere beyond the reach of the wire. Maybe the poking around helped, but I think it was the vigorous pumping that broke the seal that then cleared the drain.)

First helped out for awhile and Kinder expressed gratitude though he looked like he didn't understand what the fuss was all about. Life goes on.

Bass, tone, slap

I came to consciousness this morning, early, to the sound of Kinder saying the new rhythm he learned yesterday in drum and movement class. He is our early riser. We're all in the big bed by dawn and Kinder usually wakes quietly, but he is always super alert and "awake" the moment his eyes open. He is, also, irrepressible, which I would have no other way. Typically, he launches right into his thoughts and if he senses that any of us is in any way slightly conscious, he will start verbally riffing on something related to Ben 10.

But, this morning, it was a drum rhythm which consumed him. We had discussed his drum handedness yesterday...actually it was more of me talking to him about what I thought about his drum handedness (that he is ambidextrous with a preference for starting with his left hand). Thoughts percolated and gelled overnight and he elocuted this morning, sitting up amongst the folds and puffs of the apple comforter in the soft early light, stating that he used both his hands to drum.

Energized by the rhythm within him, he hopped out of bed and to the diningroom where his djembe lives and he began to drum. It was 6:15 a.m. I've never seen Cap bolt out of bed so fast...to spare the neighbors on a Saturday morning :-)

P.S. #1 This picture was taken before class began. By the time class gets rolling the drum circle is full of kids.

P.S. #2 I feel like I am living a double life staying up till midnight dropping into the world of "American Gods" and then being pried open, way too early, tumbling into my waking life with kids.

Shop talk

Silke and the kids came over yesterday. I had the chance to talk "shop" with her which was great. I'm still feeling like I'm straddling the two worlds/concepts/opposing forces of "Waldorf" and "unschooling". Going to the Waldorf conference in Fair Oaks while I was in CA definitely renewed my commitment to aspects of Waldorf.

One of the things we talked about was schedules. For me, doing "Waldorf" has been synonymous with working with a schedule. "Rhythm", though not a schedule, per se, is a structure, a form, which for many begins with creating daily/weekly schedules. The problem with that is that I haven't been able to stick to any of the schedules I've concocted for more than a week or so.

Thankfully, I'm past getting down on myself about that. And I'm at a point where I recognize that I need to create form and structure for us via a different method. So I posed the question to Silke, how does one move from the free form which is unpredictably studded with organic teaching and learning moments (what I am experiencing now for the most part) to overlaying more of an academic agenda to things?

As First turns seven this June, I am definitely thinking about how to approach things more formally with him. Yet, simultaneously, he is expressing a resistance to "learning" and "schooling". Silke and I talked about facing and working with our more stubborn children :-) It was one of those moments where I became particularly conscious of the unique pressures and challenges of parenting a home educated child. There's a level of trust and patience we need to have, that our practice of parenting and teaching often do not yield immediate results that can be seen or held.

Something practical which I am putting right into place came out of our conversation: the kids have each chosen a topic to study for May. Kinder chose airplanes and First chose the month of May. Lots of fertile ground.

A day at the zoo

The day before my trip to CA, the kids and I went to the zoo with S, A, and L. It was threatening to rain and a chilly day, but we went for it and had a blast. Personally, I thought it was a nice collection of animals. Wolves, bears, otters, sloths, and barn owls are all animals I particularly love. (And I loved seeing a dray horse for the first time.) These wolves were pretty interested in the kids for awhile, following them around and coming up close. But, soon after, the alpha of the group decided that they were behaving utterly too domesticated and drew them all back.

The squirrel monkeys and two toed sloth lived together. When we came upon them, the sloth was being fed. The monkeys were especially enchanting for the kids and we stayed to watch them as their home was cleaned and the monkeys jumped about. I enjoyed the up close view of the sloth. The video of this encounter reflects the liveliness of the moment much better....

The reptile house is always fun. I remember it was always a cool oasis at the zoo in Sac and on this day it was a warm respite for us after hours spent in the cold damp outdoors (and our private train ride in the woods and along the reservoir :-). I found out later that First was afraid of the large pteradactyl up in the rafters. The tortoises were much more active than the ones that live at the Sac Zoo. Actually, most of the animals we saw that day were very active. This tends to be true on days that are cool and wet.

It looks as though we cornered this peacock, but it was actually hanging out by the buiding, looking into the windows. Spring was in the air as the males were strutting their stuff. It certainly made an impression on the kids that the peacocks were roaming about "free". Though not as big as an impression as...

this fountain. This fountain was the first thing that caught the kids' attention as we entered the zoo. They came back to it as we were walking towards the playground. I don't know if it's just the kids we know and love, or if it has something to do with homeschooling, but they wanted to get into the fountain and explore the water. We talked about the water and the copper flowers and the copper coins...

Kinder commented when he saw the pics, where are the pictures of the playground? Definitely a highlight that is remembered in their hearts and minds...the playground at the zoo.

A trio of movies

On the plane west I watched "The Pursuit of Happyness". Liked it. A decent movie about a decent man.

While away I watched "The Namesake" with B. Liked it a lot and am liking it a bit less since that intial impression. There are some really good things that happened during the course of the film, but overall it was a bit dissatisfying. I love Kal Penn, but felt like he couldn't carry the weight being placed on him. Part of the problem was the sceenplay. It attempted to cover a lot of ground which is simply hard to do well when you're telling the story of two generations in two hours. Still worth renting for fans of anyone involved in the movie, I think. Mira Nair got some moving performances out of her actors and the actors who portrayed the parents (both Bollywood stars, I think), in particular, were wonderful.

On the red-eye back, I couldn't sleep and so watched "The Holiday". Kate Winslet is just dreamy. She could read the proverbial phonebook and I would just sigh and love it. The rest of the movie? If you're ever on a red-eye and need to distract yourself, then this movie can be your friend.

East meets west

I went away for a week and came back to a new craze: sumo slammers. On the show (Ben 10---which, incidentally, they have never watched), Ben's favorite videogame is called "Sumo Slammers". So, of course, there are little sumo slammer action figures "available in stores now". I think they're kind of cute. Last summer, Takai brought back from Japan some card cutouts of sumo wrestlers that came with a dohyou that one could play "sumo" with. They weren't that into it. Fast forward to this spring, mix in the magic ingredient of Ben 10 and they love it. They've been building their own stadia and filling the stands with crowds of aliens.

Waiting for godot...I mean, spring

The nor'easter of 2007 has swept through. What a fickle, confusing, climate change-y spring it has been thus far. Our nature table reflects the stuttered pause we are experiencing. Green still mixed with brown, Easter eggs and popcorn seeds present, but no blossoms yet for the vase (from Ojiichan's collection).


The snail shells (barely visible in the nature table picture) are from the Raymond garden, collected during a soil turning. It felt great working the dirt with Will and Karen. I was mesmerized by these shells, their color, their wholeness, so much better preserved in a pretty form than the many sea shells that I've found in my day. I've been tossing thoughts around my head about how to approach gardening this spring/summer and have settled on growing herbs in pots. I'll be taking a class given by a homeschooler on how to grow herbs and then use them in cooking.

I've been working on our taxes for the past three days and am nearly done. Cap'll give them a final double check and then we just have to sign them and get them in the mail tomorrow. It was the first time in over a decade that I've done the tax paperwork (I took over the household finances about a year ago) and I underestimated how grueling a process it would be. I'm thinking of going for a "tax neck" adjustment with Dr. Jayne tomorrow. Especially since I'll be flying cross-country on Wednesday for my trip to California.

All about my mother

Great flick. Cap didn't like it as much as I did. I loved the colors and designs of the textiles: on the women, on the walls, in the kitchens, etc. It was sad, intimate, dramatic, deliberately orchestrated and well structured. But, completely accessible at all times on a frequency that felt unique yet familiar. In Spanish, directed by Pedro Almodovar.

New pics

...have been added to Knex, The egg has dropped and Money matters in Dec '06 and Peaches in winter in Jan '07.

It crept up on me

...today marks one year since I started this blog.



(on Mummu's beach last weekend)

Children of men

Intense. So well done. The scariest movie I've watched in a long time. Clive was yummy, but honestly, there was little time to even think about that. Barb will need her remote in hand for this one, although there's a scene of violence that comes so quick the remote would be of no help.

Unlike The Departed, I think this movie will hold up to any level of hype or expectation. We both loved it. Our hats are off to Alfonso Cuarón.

Sick day

First spent Thursday running to the bathroom periodically, unable to keep anything solid in his body for more than an hour. We made popsicles out of apple and pomegranate-cranberry juices. He amazes me with his calmness when sick. He takes it in stride. We watched our first ever episode of Spongebob. He thought the slapstick was hilarious. Kinder was under the table with a zabuton pulled up to just under his eyes. He doesn't trust screen images not to terrify him unexpectedly.

First and I also started James and the Giant Peach together, snuggled in bed. He was very resistant, but then listened quietly once I started. I'm not sure we'll continue. He is on a cusp of reaching for new independence and growth, but he's not a big reader of traditional books. He loves to read comic books.


Sometime in the afternoon, I came upon Kinder bustling about in the kitchen making "Ghostfreak" lemonade. As I helped him slice the lemon in half I felt like I was seeing myself as a child. I was often afraid of getting hurt and he is very much like that, letting his anchor hand pop off the lemon thinking he was about to cut himself though my hand was firmly guiding his slicing hand.

He spent some time looking for our red (go Carp!) plastic bullhorn and I soon discovered he wanted to use it as a funnel to get the lemon juice from the bowl into the old apple juice container. He wrote/drew up a "how to" for making Ghostfreak lemonade and taped it onto the container (a large Apple and Eve bottle for about a cup of lemonade :-) By then the finished lemonade was in a measuring cup with a lip so he poured it in gently, capped it, priced it ($4.99), and put it in the Ben 10 store.

I talked him down to $2.50 and had a lovely glass of fresh lemonade. Which he shot on digital video.

Mummu's beach

I love Mummu's beach. It's not big, crushed in on both sides by "private" beaches, but it holds a lot of memories. Cap and I spent many an hour there pre-children being one with the sound of the surf once the rays were slanted and the 10-3 danger zone was passed.

I prefer the beach off-season. I don't like crowds and my favorite thing to do on a beach is to look for shells and sea glass.

We've been to Mummu's beach with the kids in all seasons and I feel lucky to be attached to this particular slice of nature. We went last weekend after saying our good-byes to Mummu (not a beach bum that one). It was the perfect coda to a day that included cooking and dying eggs, lunch from Seafood Sam's (my first lobster roll of the season - yum), figuring out and fixing the leaking fridge and being together within the waiting and wondering that has defined so much of the last six months.

First diligently dug a small but deep hole (not to China, but that's exactly what it looked and felt like), we watched two seemingly innocuous but utterly mystifying black vessels that almost looked organic move silently and quickly across the water just under the horizon (Cap thought they were subs), I delighted in the shells that were washing up so distinctly different from the summer shells, and Kinder got his feet wet, socks and shoes and all because he is not always careful, he simply is, which is something I treasure about him.

Dying eggs

We cooked our own vegetable dyes this year. We used the dry brown outer layers of onion skin, turmeric, beets and red cabbage. The dark burgundy tone is from the onion skins, the mustardy golden rod color is from the turmeric. The red cabbage produced a pale, pale blue with marbling effect (the eggs were wrapped in the cabbage leaves and then bound up with rubber bands). The beets, Kinder was inspired in the produce aisle by them, resulted in a barely there wash of dull red-brown. The cabbage egg can be seen in the single egg holder in the back on the left.

It was fun to create and observe the alchemy. The kids were not into participating very much (we were at Mummu's and they were immersed in drawing), but when asked at the end of the weekend, First expressed his preference of these eggs over the ones that he painted with Karen and the kids on Sunday, a project he called the shots on from step one (he really wanted to paint eggs, the eggs had to be white, etc.)

I like to think he was irresistably drawn to the undeniable earthy and grounding quality of these Easter eggs symbolizing the arrival of Spring. (Thanks to Olivia for the use of her bunny bowl.)

Thanks also to Mummu for connecting with the story Rechenka's Eggs by Patricia Polacco and reading it to the boys.

It does pay forward

We went to Fiber Arts today. I struck a deal with the kids. We would go to FA and stay till 3:30 and afterwards, I would take them to Toys R Us where they would buy, with their own money, some Ben 10 toys (a nearly weekly ritual anyway).

The kids felt very shy. I have been inconsistent with attending FA and though the kids are fairly familiar with the FA crew, we were at Kate's house for the first time today. Ada really set the stage when she offered them candy from her Easter basket. Kinder enjoyed what may have been his first ever peanut butter cup and First was grateful and excited by the whole roll of Smarties that came his way.

Kinder perked up, between the candy, Curious George book we read, and the pretzels and cookies that were on the snack table. He is more social than First and he quickly became involved in taking turns on the treadmill with a bunch of kids and then playing with legos with Elliott. And he wove one row of his potholder.

First stayed close to my side as I fingerknit the long jump rope I am working on. He spotted a puzzle that he had just seen at Will and Olivia's this weekend and he worked on that. It was nice to see him build up to feeling comfortable asking Kate things like where the clock was in the kitchen (he was keeping an eye on the time like nobody's business).

My favorite moment was having my hair sprinkled with glitter by Ada.

After two pleasant hours, it was time to go. I left without my bag, which I discovered as we got out of the car at Toys R Us, so we ended up having one of those cozy late afternoon rides in the car where it's cold outside but toasty inside from the slanting rays of the sun. Kinder fell asleep for awhile. It was an additional hour to go back to Kate's and then back to TRU.

Fate was smiling though because as the kids wrestled with the question of what to do because they only found one toy (4 inch Four Arms) that either of them wanted, I happened to spot across the aisle, in completely the wrong location, a small batch of toys. Among them, a 4 inch Heat Blast, also much coveted.

At the register, as I pulled out First's twenty from my wallet, he said he would pay for Kinder's toy, too. Kinder piped up quickly, "thank you", I swooped in for a hug and a kiss and a compliment, and in my heart, I thanked Ada for her candy generosity earlier in the day. It was lovely to witness the linking of such simple and soulful acts of giving.

Catching up

• Danielle said yesterday, "what were the chances that four kids who like repackaging Ben 10 toys with their own alternate Ben 10 creations, with the zeal that these guys have for it, would be brought together at just the right time in life?"

• J.R. and Pam have been in town since Friday and will be in the area for a few weeks working Home Depot contractor service shows. As usual, it's been wonderful having them around. It's been a particularly yummy food time that they've inspired: Thai curry with homemade panko crusted chicken cutlets one dinner, cold sesame noodles and collard greens one lunch, and one of my ultimate comfort foods, spaghetti with meat sauce, a deluxe salad and corn bread last night. It's always a treat for me to make a salad since I only do it when we have company (Cap does not eat salad and it's hard to get through a great salad solo without it going bad.)

Seeing and hearing the kids play with J.R. reminds me of playing with You-niichan when I was little. He was younger than my parents, a single company man, I think, and he would play with Sandy and me for what seemed like hours letting us climb all over him. We were always so happy to see him.

Pam and J.R. treated us to books at the bookstore where I had gotten them their birthday presents back in January. We all walked up to the bookstore and spent a leisurely time poring over books and cards. I've actually started fantasizing about working at this bookstore because I love it so much. Kinder got a Spiderman book, First a dot-to-dot, Pam some nice cards, J.R. a book about Spain, and I picked out Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie for Cap and Neil Gaiman's American Gods for myself. I had a Jodi Picoult book in my hands for awhile because I am intrigued by her, but I am also repulsed by the rate at which she seems to crank out books. I don't trust that there will be enough...depth?

• On Sunday, we celebrated my dad's 70th birthday with my side of the family up at Mohonk. My parents used to take us there around the Christmas holidays when we were kids. It's a beautiful Victorian hotel nestled in a mountain with numerous hiking trails, a lake, gardens, an ice rink and these cute little wooden resting huts and gazebos scattered about the grounds and trails. We had brunch (First loved the breakfast sausage and Kinder the bagels, jello and mini key lime tartlets) and also did a lot of walking, rock climbing, looking at the rainbow trout in the lake, skating, and communing with each other. It was amazing being there with my family again and also being there with Cap, Kinder and First.

• On his actual birthday, my dad came over for his first visit to our place. Cap picked him up at the train station and then drove him up to the Uni to show him around up there. The kids played with him indoors and out. We had Red soup (purée of beets, carrots, chicken stock and miso), sautéed cabbage, hummus and a little birthday cake---featherlight yellow cake (from one of Bette Hagman's GF books) with powdered sugar and lingonberry preserves on top. The kids and I are really into lingonberry these days. We ended our visit with some time out in the backyard shooting hoops. A beautiful spring afternoon.

• Saw Mean Girls on tv the other day. I was pleasantly surprised by Lindsay Lohan's screen presence.

• We lost the gift of HBO for one day, but it has returned. I'm still keeping in mind that it could go away again at any time. I'm enjoying Real Time with Bill Maher these days. And am planning on catching the final episodes of The Sopranos and the new episodes of Entourage.

• Ashley Judd was luminous in Come Early Morning.

• I was psyched for the return of The Shield last night.

• I just love Hugh Laurie in House.

• Was a little blue, a lot tired, and quite "shut" last week. When I got my period on Sunday, I thought, "oh PMS". I'm giving up on ever having it be second nature to know PMS when I see it.

• I think I'm about to abandon Middlesex for the second time.

• Our get togethers with Anna, Lukas and Silke are becoming regular on Tuesday afternoons. Nice.

• Egypt Day is Thursday. The kids will make a posterboard about Egyptian currency. I'm making an Egyptian Foul (bean dip). We'll see if the kids help in the making of it. I was in the new Whole Foods yesterday picking up some ingredients. I hadn't been there in awhile, but had other errands at Staples and The Rag Shop right next door. It is really a nice store and experience, huge as it is.

• I posted to the Watercooler for the first time yesterday asking for recs for a notary public. I got many nice responses and found out the library has some notaries on staff and that the bank should notarize, even if it isn't official bank business.

• We're seeing Lucia and Holly today. Haven't seem them in ages. No picnic as hoped it's going to be rainy and in the thirties!

• We're picking up an African drum for Kinder today. We're getting a good deal through his drumming teacher.

• I researched and bought two subscriptions for the Symphony for the 2007-2008 season. They are incredibly reasonable. ($8 per ticket for the family series and $11 per ticket for the Sat night series for me and Cap) The best part though, was doing something which will expand our experience where we are and knowing we'll be here to do it even though it's "next" year. I also thought of my grandfather who loved classical music.

• I need to do our taxes! The first time in ages that I'll be handling taxes since Cap handed over our finances to me last spring.

• Cap did not get the Japan Foundation grant. He is still hoping to get to Japan for a couple of weeks this summer to do some research so he can publish pieces of his dissertation supplemented with new data. Our credit card foundaton will fund his travels.

• This means a summer here lies in wait for us and I can begin imagining.... Danielle and I talked yesterday of weekly outings to their lake place where they have a membership. (I think a dreaded bathing suit buying excursion may be in my future.)

• We will be at Karen and Brent's this weekend. Turns out Karen and I have been in Easter baskets overdrive, independent of each other (me in The Rag Shop yesterday: "ooh, First can eat these bright yellow rabbit "peeps"!). Like two peas in a pod...

We'll be spending Saturday afternoon with Mummu who is still in limbo in terms of her heart surgery. At this point it is the surgeon's office which is lagging in their scheduling. The new health insurance is on track and she has an appointment with a potential new PCP. But on Saturday, we'll enjoy Seafood Sam's and other springly delights.

We'll also see Jake and Evie and some other folks at a small Easter brunch on Sunday. It'll be good to see them and the house. Hopefully, we'll squeeze Jamie in there, too, if the timing works out.

• Ebs and Victor are due to have their baby later this month, Edith and Stephen had their baby, James, on the last day of February, Ellen and Jen are due to have twins in a couple of months, Ben just got his first post-Ph.D. job at SUNY New Paltz (we found out the morning we left for our day trip there) and Anna is suddenly in the position of traveling to and from interviews after waiting so long (bless her heart which has needed to be so strong this winter).

• I am looking forward to some solo travel again. I'll be in Oakland and Sacramento in a couple of weeks.