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.