Frog And Toad Are Still Friends

I Started A New Blog

2011-10-13T12:18:00.000-04:00

TWELVE!

2011-05-06T10:57:00.002-04:00

My oldest - the child of the last of my bumbling youth, my firstborn - turned 12 today.

And twelve is a big deal. Twelve feels very much like the end of childhood, like the very last of it and then it's onto Teenagerland and the vast plains of adulthood and this is not precisely a sad thing unless you really romanticize being a kid, but it's poignant, at least.

"You're not going to be a bad teenager, are you?" I asked her this morning, and she gave me a funny, scrunchy look.

"How would I know?" she said. "I can say right now that I have no plans to be bad, but apparently hormones give you brain damage, so I can't PROMISE you anything."

I was sort of a late bloomer and by "sort of" I mean "I was the dictionary definition of a late bloomer and entered high school as a short little breastless child" and I floundered my way through adolescence and it's really, REALLY shocking to me that I came out of it with a lovely husband and a life that had worked out more or less exactly the way I wanted it, since the path there was so hard and meandering. I want things easier for my kids, want them to have a life without needless pain. The horrible part? Me WANTING that doesn't make it happen - my kids are going to go through what they go through and all I can hope is that what we have given them in the breathtaking short years of childhood has been enough.

I still dream about being a child all the time, as though childhood was this place that feeds everything else in my life, as though childhood is this other room with the door always slightly open. And my oldest child - my firstborn, the child of the end of my bumbling youth - is standing in the doorway of that room, standing in the threshold and what I hope for her is that her childhood will always be this magical place for her, a place full of sunlight and days at the farm and fairy houses and St. Nicholas Day and her parents' flawed, human love, that her childhood is a radiant place and that the rest of her days are human and golden and happy.

And Now We Are Six

2011-04-21T07:35:00.003-04:00

Six feels big, doesn't it? Like the entryway to Big Kidland, like the door closing forever on the soft, endless days of babyhood. And here we are, with my youngest child suddenly and all at once six years old.

WELL.

She's a great kid - you'd probably think so too if you knew her, unless you are really no fun - lippy and hilarious and affectionate and full of Clever Schemes. For example: she recently lost her first tooth and was very pleased to find FIVE DOLLARS from the Tooth Fairy the next morning.

"As soon as I find the hammer, I'm going to be RICH!" she announced cheerfully to her big sister.

"How's that?" asked her big sister, in the barely-interested manner that only nearly-12-year olds can pull off.

"That's between me and the Tooth Fairy," she said, airily.

She wears outfits of outstanding, eye-searing colourfulness. She hates injustice and stands up fearlessly to anyone she thinks is pushing someone smaller around, even though she's impossibly tiny herself. Nightmares send her dashing to my bed, clinging to me in her sleep like a tree frog (She told me once "I thought if my dream scared me THAT bad, I'd better go check mom out. You're more easily frightened."). She is at once shockingly clever and heartbreakingly vulnerable, spoiled beyond telling and yet generous to a fault, able to throw herself into anything with wholehearted uninhibited zeal and such a good, good little girl. You would love her if you met her. And today she is six. Six!

Toys

2011-03-21T11:40:00.002-04:00

We spent the last Saturday of March Break in The Big City because The Baby had some medical tests scheduled and we thought nothing would be more fun than bringing our easily bored nearly-12-year-old and nine year old along with us. What a great idea! Eventually, though, the endless morning of tests (for The Baby) and endless whining (for the other two) was over and we took them to the toy store, because The Baby gets a treat whenever she has to put up with all of the medical nonsense she has to put up with and it only seemed fair that we buy something for the other two while we were at it.

In The Big City, there is a new giant toy store - a revelation to my children, who are normally content with the toy selection at the hardware store (two aisles near the cleaning products) and who sometimes get to go to small toy stores filled with the kind of toys that affluent thoughtful parents want their children to like. But this toy store had multiple aisles devoted to Barbie and an area the size of our house full of video games and my younger two kids were ENCHANTED. Pick one inexpensive thing! we told them and The Baby knew right away what she wanted - a stuffed peacock, thank you very much - and The Boy took his time and The Girl wandered around with this strange forlorn look on her face.

What's the matter? I asked her.

I don't want anything, she said. How can I not find anything I want in this whole huge store?

Sometimes endings in childhood are gradual - things slip away when we're not paying attention and we don't even notice for ages that they're gone - and sometimes they come abruptly. A few months ago - a few weeks ago, even - there still would have been many things that would have delighted her but all at once she was too old for it and that was that, it was over.

I remember being nearly her age. I'd had this doll family - I called them the Middle Sized Doll Family, because they were all largeish dolls but not THAT big - and for years I'd unselfconsciously played torrid soap operas with them until one day I picked one of them up and it was just a doll, just a plastic thing and whatever magic toys had was all at once gone, like it had washed away during the night and left only me.

We went to a bookstore, the Girl and me, and wandered around for a while and finally she picked out something she wanted - a bookstore chocolate bar - and was quiet on the drive home, mulling over the loss of something she could not put into words. This is the way most things end, I wanted to tell her, but did not.

Am I dead? Is this heaven?

2011-02-15T10:21:00.002-05:00

No and no.

I did get to have surgery, though - and do you know how sick you get before they decide that cutting you open and taking parts of you out is the best possible solution? PRETTY DARN SICK - and my youngest brother very helpfully suggested that they also take out all the other parts that I'm no longer using or can do without out to save me any future surgeries, but I chose to ignore his AMAZINGLY BRILLIANT advice and keep my ovaries, appendix and tonsils for future good times.

I'm pretty much better now AND I have some gross new scars! Win!

So I've decided that the best way to judge the quality of one's mate is to go through a long painful illness around them and if I didn't think my husband was a fine, fine fellow BEFORE now, I certainly would at this point. He has spent months and months buying groceries and making meals and caring for our monstrous children and keeping stuff WAY cleaner than it usually is and doing all the rest of the stuff he already does WITHOUT COMPLAINING ONCE. NOT ONCE. I married a freaking PRINCE, I tell you. A prince who should probably not decide to test my mettle in the same sort of way, frankly. He gets old/sickly/gross looking? I AM OUTTA HERE.

All right. So here's your assignment: tell me what I should write about in my next post because I am BORED of talking about this dumb illness. Ready? GO.

Hey Look It's Me!

2010-12-03T10:12:00.002-05:00

And how am I? I am okay. This fall really was vile, though. VILE! And I don't want to write about it!

For one thing, whenever I tell people about what happened, they're like "I KNOW SOMEONE WHOSE GALLLBLADDER EXPLODED AND THEY DIED!" or "Yeah, that happened to me. I didn't whine nearly anywhere near as much as you are." Frankly, both schools of comments make me feel sort of bitter and crabby.

Doo doo doo, what else? I AM SO SKINNY NOW! Dude. You have no idea. I was a chubby regular mom sort before The Great Gallbladder Storm of '10, but now I'm freaking GAUNT, which has led to me being startled whenever I walk in front of a mirror in my underwear, which I happen to do really frequently now. I don't recommend my weight-loss technique, however, no matter how amusing it is to be able to count my ribs again.

Funnily enough, because I got sick at the beginning of October/end of September, I still feel like I'm frozen there - know what I mean? - and instead it's almost Christmas and I am so not ready. It's St. Nicholas Day on Monday and we are NOT prepared, and Santa doesn't know what he's bringing for Christmas. And by "Santa" I mean "Bill", since he's the lucky guy who has picked up all of the slack around here AND spent every other minute comforting me while I whimpered that I was really, really TIRED of all of this crap. He is such a good husband and has totally been here for me all through this boring, discouraging business.

Without dwelling too much on it, I will say that I spent a very grim week when my ultrasound and blood test results came back with very worrisome questions, and I was gripped with sheer terror for that week - needlessly, of course - terror that my life was going to go on without me, that I was becoming the skinny fading ghost of myself and vanishing. And instead it is almost Christmas, and although I don't feel it yet, I will.

The Healing Power of Oprah

2010-11-19T15:16:00.009-05:00

I was languishing miserably last week - surgery-free, thanks, and I'll write more about THAT when I'm actually feeling all the way better - when suddenly a thought occurred to me from out of the blue.

THE OPRAH HOLIDAY GIFT LIST WAS COMING OUT SOON! I MUST RECOVER AT ONCE!

So, in my much-thinner (good gracious) hands, I am now holding the December issue of O Magazine and once again I am having my annual realization that Oprah and I are very, very different people. For one, I am sarcastic and unlikely to tell you how to live a life full of miraculous miracles, and for another, I am unlikely to gift you with a $350 tray with a painting of your dog on it (so very sorry). Does this mean that I think expensive dog art is therefore NEVER a suitable gift? No, the wealthy and childless dog lovers of this world are entitled to their kicks, too.

And oh, it is a childless list. There are nearly as many presents for obsessive pet lovers as there are for children, which is the sort of thing that makes me think that Oprah and I wouldn't really get along.

Off I go!

This year's list has a slightly different set-up - Oprah's stable of spin-off people all have their own lists, each with a different feel and each with a little introductory blurb about what they value in gift-giving (Suze Orman, for example, likes to give non-cluttery consumable gifts while Gayle King points out that a good gift is chosen specifically for one person only.). We begin with Oprah herself:

1) A hand-painted tray with a picture of your dog, cat or other animal on it. It's $350 and Oprah suggests I give this to "a friend" when frankly, my friends are lucky if I drop off a cheap bottle of wine at Christmas. So this is not going to happen, but it's quite pretty as an object. Do you know someone who is over-attached to their pet and do you also have vast piles of money? Then here you go, Scrooge McDuck.

2. An old-fashioned Amish popcorn pot with... a bottle of truffle oil and a jar of truffle salt. Of, of course. It's $79, but I've found the Amish popcorn makers for around $30 and it might be a nice gift for one of those earnest outdoorsy sort of families. Not mine, though. We are unearnest and make our popcorn in a cheap-o air popper and then I do not eat it because popcorn is vile.

3. The Microdelivery In-Home Vitamin C/Peptide Peel set, which costs $70. Now, this is just me here, but if someone gave me two small, very expensive bottles of face fixer, I wouldn't think "How luxurious!" but rather "I am old and haggard and desperate measures are being taken to fix my Cryptkeeper-esque face." I do think that this is the sort of thing that you should either buy for yourself or only if specifically requested as a gift.

4. A rather lovely pair of owl-print pajamas that I would totally yearn for if they were not $68 (for Oprah magazine readers and $84.95 for the rest of you), which is just more than I spend of pajamas, no matter how owly. If that strikes you as a fine price, they ARE very cute.

5. Custom-designed notepads - five of them - with your very own beloved dog drawn upon them for $298.00. Holy heck! How much do you like that freaking dog? Now, maybe you are an affluent sort of person who values high-quality objects and I'm not trying to ruin your fun. I am, however, trying to ask for money.

6. Citrusy lotion and body wash. How nice! Less nice is that they cost $85 and $75 EACH. EACH! Does my enjoyment of my lotion and body wash increase exponentially with every ten dollars I spend? I am boggled.

7. A miniature easel with a "luscious four-ply card stock" calendar. $125. There are many things in this world I do not get - hard maths, the popularity of Celine Dion - and right up there with those would be expensive paper products. I just do not understand.

8. Tubes of handmade gingersnaps, which is pretty nice. I could hector on in my annual Cookies-Are-Not-Hard-To-Make-Luxury-Objects fashion as usual, but I'm tired this year and frankly a tube of gingersnaps sounds like a sensible, lovely thing after a $125 calendar and a $85 bottle of lotion.

9. Sweet potato butter. $9. Well, sure. This is fine.

10. The LIFE documentary.$39. A family member gives us documentaries every year, which we never watch because we are a frivolous people and undeserving of such intellectual splendor. I'm betting we get this one.

11. High-gloss wooden jewelry boxes. $185. These actually look much nicer on the shop's site than they do in the magazine, which features the avocado green and orange versions. Do not give me an avocado green jewelry box.

12. The O magazine AP for one's iPad. I don't want this, either, but someplace, some childless self-actualized dog lover is just delirious with joy. Good for them, I say. And also: Don't hang out with me!

13. An iPad. $499. They cost $499? Where was I when all the money was being handed out? GEEZ. Why am I such a freaking Luddite pauper?

14. An iPad cover that looks like an antique book. If I had an iPad and $70 more, I would so want this.

Onto Dr. Oz! I was somewhat startled to see that I liked his list the best, having felt no particular kinship with him in the past. Apparently, though, he is my Oprah-land soulmate. How startling.

1. Single Origin Chocolate Bars. $7. YES. See, this is the sort of thing I might actually give to a friend for Christmas or use as a stocking stuffer for my husband. The packaging on these is beautiful.

2. Saucony ProGrid Kinvara sneakers. $90. I'm just going to give up on my mission to stop having athletic shoes be an acceptable gift. GO AHEAD. I AM TOO SICK TO CARE ANYMORE.

3. Nigella Lawson's ceramic measuring cups. $26. If you ignore Dr. Oz's suggestion that these are great for portion control - seriously, do not give people the Gift Of Portion Control for Christmas- these are a lovely, covetable object.

4. Nike Sport Band. $59. I can think of lots of hearty, athletic acquaintances of mine who would love this. Why do we hang out, hearty athletic acquaintances? What do we possibly have in common?

5. Middle Colors Ultrasonic Small Humidifier, $120. This is a fair chunk of change, but it's so appealing - like a Barbapappa! - and I keep humidifiers running all winter, so I'm going to come out and say that I like it.

6. Monogrammed Yoga Mat - $28. This is good for someone who is not me, and comes in many pretty colours.

7. Belle De Nuit Silk Sleep Mask. $30. My oldest loves those sleep masks one can buy at the tween accessory stores because she is an elegant lady. I would like this one and while I'm at it, I'd like someone to keep my loud, loud children busy on Saturday mornings.

Suze Orman time!

1. Little red Chinese money envelopes- $2 for 40. One of my aunts sends my kids money gifts in those little red envelopes and they are THRILLED.

2. Suze Orman's book "Thoughts That Can Change Your Life." Well, if I was writing a gift list and had also written a book (possible title: "Many Things Irritate Me"), I most certainly would include it. Do you know someone who reads O magazine earnestly? If so, here's a book for them.

3. Great Expectations Double Discovery Gift - $48. It's one of those nicely packaged boxes of gift foods- baklava, nuts, cheeses, smoked sausage and chocolates - and while I can't quite imagine getting one, I certainly wouldn't complain. It's the gift of SAUSAGE.

4. A set of three extra-virgin olive oils. $85. Sigh.

5. Silver Elephants note cards,12 for $75, I am not kidding. They are hand-edged-and-stamped in silver, and yet still. These would be great if you correspond with The Queen on a monthly basis.

6. Black and Decker Studio Shredder. $40. My mother-in-law has a paper shredder and faithfully shreds all mail, while we were given one and it sat in its box until we gave it away. Your call.

7. The Ultimate Bath And Shower Mini Oil Collection, which is a pricey $68 and yet I would still like. It will go nicely with my new silk eye mask/lady of leisure shtick.

Nate Berkus time.

1. The Nook book reader- $149. I guess this is the sort of thing that people who like this sort of thing will want. I would like one, thank you.

2. A purple Christmas tree ball that Nate Berkus designed and that costs $20. Profits go to a children's hospital, which makes buying a solitary $20 tree ball a lot less scalding.

3. Ray-Ban Metal Glide Aviator glasses - $140. I buy all my sunglasses at truck stops, because I just WRECK 'em. You may possibly be more careful than me. It would be hard to be less.

4. V-Neck Crewneck Cashmere Sweaters. - $145. I would like mine in orchid, but this is not going to happen, because I don't run in $145 gift sweater circles. Poor sweet cashmereless me.

5. Two decks of Tiffany playing cards - $30. These belong to a different life than mine - something affluent and suburban and American and set in 1952 and the husband and wife are playing cards in the living room with the neighours they're having affairs with. I think John Cheever wrote it.

6. Nate Berkus for HSN Ikat Bowl - $30. "Don't shy away from giving gifts for the home," writes Nate. "A decorative bowl works for everything from fruit to keys and mail." Oh yeah? We gave friends a perfectly nice decorative bowl, which decorated their laundry room bath for a while. Decorative objects are a tricky thing to give. I strongly recommend against giving decorative objects.

7. Fish-eye-lens camera $50. This is hilarious! I could easily see giving this to my husband for Christmas.

I'm not even in the homestretch yet. Good grief. Why did I ever start doing these posts? But courage, self! Onto Gayle King's list.

1. A Southern-Style Pound Cake topped with fresh flowers inside a satin hat-box. $104. As an object, it's quite lovely. Cake! Flowers! A pretty puffy satin box! I like all of these things. But $104 is a lot of clams for a cake.

2. Spring Bouquet Floral Leather Clogs - $68. I like these. I can't quite imagine giving people shoes as a gift, though - can you? Sweaters, yes but shoes just seem sort of.... weird.

3. Harlem Toile De Jouy Limited Edition Plates - 6 for $69. Oh, these are pretty.

4. Exercise videos. Jari Love's Get Extremely Ripped 1000 - $12.The Hayes Way - $12 and Turbo Jam $60 for 5 disc set. I'm getting the Get Extremely Ripped one for my grandma and the Turbo Jam set for my great-aunt who is a retired minister, because what I'd really like my Christmas gifts to them to say is "Please be buffer."

5. Renato Collezioni Women's Beauty Chronograph Watch - $319. This is, apparently, a bargain, and yet I am still unlikely to wear something on my wrist that is worth MORE THAN MY HAND.

6. Pratesi Signature 3 LinesTerry Robe - $700. Um, I got a robe for Christmas last year. It's blue and fluffy and good to wear when I'm feeling delicate/hungover/too lazy to even put on pajamas. I love my robe. It cost, I believe, $45. I understand that there are more luxurious versions of robes and so forth, but $700 for a terry robe? Really? And I'm supposed to buy TWO of them? There is no one I like enough on this planet that I would spend $700 on a ROBE for them.

7. Milk chocolate African- American Santa - $8. Hey, he's cute! Here's a nice stocking stuffer.

Dr. Phil's list, which is sort of endearingly out-of-it.

1. A collection of four French cheeses and a bottle of wine - $80. I would like this. Dr. Phil could give this to me and it would only be slightly creepy.

2. Cowshed Bath and Massage Oil - $27. Whenever someone says "massage", I say "Sensual MAY- sahggh" like Austin Powers, which proves two things: 1. I am immature and 2. I need to watch more recent movies. Do you like to give sensual may-saahghs? Here you go. I do not suggest giving it to your boss.

3. Lammes Candies Longhorns - $22. A box of candy makes a fine gift, I guess, but nut allergies being common these days, I would check first.

4. Ancestry.com Family Tree Maker - $32. I would like this, but I find that people are radically divided when it comes to family trees - half of the world seems to find it an interesting, compelling hobby while the other half finds it a grave-stirring waste of time. It's probably best to know which one your givee is before giving this.

5. MinoHD 1Hr. flip movie cameras - $180. These are nice, I guess.

6. Williams-Sonoma Cashmere Throw - $198. This is fine as an object, but I really am feeling resentful that I wasn't born into the $198 cashmere throw segment of society. All I get are Grandma-knitted afghans.

7. Pulse Seven-Inch Frame - $130 We got three of those digital photo frames for Christmas last year, all of which are still sitting in immaculate unopened condition. So your gift givee probably got one last year OR is your grandmother and will just find this confusing.

Valerie Monroe. Who is she? I do not know.

1. Maison Francis Kurkdjian Les Bulles d'Agathe - $18. PERFUME SCENTED BUBBLES! This is the sort of magical little thing that my husband - who is the best husband ever - gives me for Christmas.

2. Stainless Steel Carafe - $229. Oh, for Pete's sake. Is spending $229 on a stainless steel water pitcher really going to make you happy?

3. Faces of the World Chocolates - $12. For the chocolate jaded palate, apparently, although if I ever get jaded enough to start considering "tahini" a legitimate chocolate option, I should probably take up a challenging hobby.They're kind of spiffy looking, though.

4. E.L.F. Cosmetics 100-Piece Eyeshadow Palette - $10. I used to consider those million-shades-of-whatever sets a big ol' waste of money and then I suddenly had an 11 year old daughter who wants to experiment with eyeshadow at sleepovers and now I am like I AM GOING TO BUY HER THIS SO SHE WILL STAY OUT OF MY MAKEUP.

5. Four Expesso Cups with Silver Spoons - $140. POINTLESS EXTRAVAGANCE.

6. Clinique Click and Be Happy - $28. This, however, is fun - three mix-and-match perfume wands/lip gloss sticks - and a decent price, too.

7. Limited Edition Creme de Corps by Jeff Koons - $70. Profits go to charity. And meanwhile, you've just spent $70 on a bottle of lotion. You, my wealthy friend, are so very different than me.

Adam Glassman
1. Turkish Cotton Bath Towels - $55 each. We got some nice bath towels last year - to replace the last ones we got, which were wedding gifts 12 years ago. So I am all for nice bath towels, but if you spend $55 on them, I'm hardly going to use it to dry my family with, AM I.

2. Claude Dozorme Cutlery Steak Knives in rainbow - $160 for six. Here's science for you: if you give someone knives - and are you really going to give someone a $160 set of steak knives? - you have to give them some money with it, which they then give BACK to you, thus buying the knives in superstition land and preventing the severing of your friendship.

3. Joan Boyce for HSN ASpen Shadow Misses - $50. These are sparkly fuchsia boots. Perhaps you know someone who would like sparkly fuchsia boots.

4. Protocol Tiger Jet with Gyro- $39. HEY IT'S A PRESENT FOR A KID I FEEL KIND OF WOOZY! My kids would love one of these flying helicopters. However, my in depth knowledge of my children lets me know with utter certainty that they would spend most of their time trying to fly the helicopter right into each other's heads. I certainly hope your children are better behaved.

5. 48 bite-sized latkes - $32. Someone buy me this. I am feeling delicate and would like to eat latkes, thank you.

6. Printed tissue-weight cashmere wraps - $122. There is pointless extravagance and then there's point-ful extravagance, a rare category of magical and lovely spendy things. How I would love a tissue-weight cashmere wrap.

7. Kyle MacLachlan's red wine - $52. My dad makes wine. If you're really nice to me, I'll give you a bottle of the piquant red wine he makes from beets. It tastes amusingly of beets.

Martha Beck. I do not know who she is, but her last name is oddly familiar to me.

1. Aluminum wallet - $39. "Conspiracy theorists will love this!" writes Beck, who is not me. What I mostly want for the conspiracy theorists of my acquaintance is for them to stop bothering me with their FREAKING THEORIES. Merry Christmas to me!

2. Glass ornaments set with feathers in them - $58 - These will, Beck writes, "scatter good feng shui." Oh, certainly - but having grown up country, feathers don't remind me so much of "ethereal beauty" as "dead plucked birds hanging up in the porch." Doesn't that take all the romance out of them?

3. Personalized 80-piece youth art set - $20. Well, this is nice, especially if you know an artsy kid.

4. The Gift Of Nothing by Patrick McDonnell $14 - The characters of the Mutts comic strip star in a slim children's book. I haven't seen it, but I guess it would be fine.

5. "Adopting" an elephant. From $50. This is nice, although I tend to favour human-based charities over the animal variety. That's a personal thing, but it's worth noting that it's also one that many people share.

6. Every National Geographic since1888. $56 This strikes me as a fantastic sort of thing, and I'm actually mulling over getting it for my husband, who would likely never use it - but it has its own wild romance, doesn't it?

7. Ethical Bean Coffee - $12. Back before my husband swore off The Demon Coffee, this is the sort of thing I would put in his stocking. Now that he is free of vice, I'm not putting ANYthing in it. Serves him right.

It's not an ulcer...

2010-11-06T12:57:00.000-04:00

It's my gallbladder and it's coming out this week. So prayers and good wishes for a safe surgery and uneventful test results, please.

Hey!

2010-11-01T10:06:00.002-04:00

I was sick! So very very sick!
I went to the hospital! I had TESTS!
And I lost a bunch of weight. Whoa, Nelly. If you'd told me at the beginning of October that I'd be at my goal weight by the end of the month, I'd have said "That sounds unlikely". Except with swearing in it, because that's how I roll in real life. BUT I AM, thanks to it HURTING TO EAT. (this is being dealt with and I'm able to eat now, albeit only horrible, horrible foods. So that's kind of a win-lose.)

They think I have an ulcer, which I always thought happened to stressed-out business-types. Apparently, however, my life is too high stress for me and this fills me with fear, since my life is pretty low-stress. I mean, I don't WORK. All of my kids are in SCHOOL - and thank GOODNESS for that, because I spent the past three weeks pretty much totally out of commission - and so I don't know what's filling me with The Stress - is it the pressures of reading ALL OF THE INTERNET? Is it the napping?

So help me waste away my convalescence - tell me something funny/cheery/mildly amusing to help me in my malingering and help me while away the dull, couch-filled hours. xo

Halloween 1#

2010-10-12T09:23:00.003-04:00

Fairly Odd

Daphne was probably the least popular kid in the school. It wasn't just that she was weird looking - although she was, with big jug ears and bug eyes and a too-small nose and giant teeth - but she also dressed like a mutant and never brushed her teeth and laughed too loud and smelled pretty bad and picked her nose in the middle of class and was pretty dumb. The kids didn't like her and the teachers rolled their eyes at her and tried not to touch her very much. Some kid stole her bike and some kid would follow her home and yell names at her and and some kid would steal her pencils off her desk and leave her looking around, wondering where her pencils had got to.

"That poor kid doesn't have a chance," my mom said to my dad as they watched Daphne bike - on her brother's too-big bike, now hers was gone - up and down the street all by herself. Her mom was gone - taken off with some old guy because she'd decided that she was "an artist" now - and her dad drank and my mom called Daphne "one of life's victims" to my dad when she didn't think I was listening. But I am always listening.

Keep Away Daphne, all the kids called her. She ate by herself and ran around the schoolyard by herself and even the teachers didn't like her and that was the way it had always been. Then I got chicken pox and was home scratching for two weeks.

My mom brought me in mid-morning, after listening to me whine that I was just fine, moooom, and we stopped at the main office while she explained that my scabs were healed over and to call her if I couldn't stick it out and then she walked me to my room - mom! - and I noticed, just out of the corner of my eye, that the big Student Of The Week spot on the bulletin board was Daphne. That never happens, I thought.

And then I walked into my classroom and everything was different.

All of the girls were sitting in a big cluster around Daphne, who was sitting right in the primo middle of the room spot, and Daphne had a big smile on her face... and her face looked changed, somehow. Prettier and cleaner, definitely, but after I looked at her for a second, I could still see the old Daphne underneath, like the prettiness and the cleanness was just a mask. She looked at me and smiled but the Daphne underneath - the real Daphne - did not.

Sit with me at lunch, Daphne! said Emma, the most popular girl in class.
Want to play Four Square with us? the boys in the corner called to her.
Oh, Daphne! said the teacher. Your test was perfect! And she knelt down and gave smelly old Daphne a hug, just like she never did before.
Rutger, the big kid who was always really mean to Daphne, was just gone. His running shoes were still underneath his desk and his books were still open on it. Where'd Rutger go? I asked Melinda, my best friend, and she wrinkled her face up and said Who? and went back to smiling at Daphne.

There was a pink pencil and a green pencil on her desk.

I walked home after school - by myself, because my friends were walking home in a huge mob around Daphne - and went out onto the patio to think. My house is a few houses away from Daphne's and I can see into her yard, if I wanted to - and her mom came walking out of their patio door and shook out a rug. Her mom, the one who had left her whole family to paint naked ladies and live far away.

Daphne walked into her backyard. Hi baby! said her mom. How is my favorite girl? I made you cookies!

There was a pink squirrel and a green squirrel with Daphne. One of them - the pink one- pulled on Daphne's pant leg and pointed at me and Daphne stopped hugging her mom and looked across the yards right at me and I went into my house pretty quickly.

I wasn't that bad to her, I think.

Sure, her bike is my shed.

Sure, I used to follow her home and say some mean things. But a lot of kids did that.

Sure, I would take her pencils.

But I wasn't as mean as Rutger. A lot of kids were as mean as me, and they're still here.

Maybe I'll wake up in the morning and I'll forget all this and Daphne will be the prettiest girl in the world and Queen of the Playground and who knows what else. Maybe. I hope.

Maybe I will just be gone.

I'm writing this down just in case.

And wishing - oh, wishing - that I had grabbed that pink pencil and that green pencil off her desk as I walked by this morning.

Run Off

2010-09-27T11:05:00.005-04:00

Whenever people tell me that they've seen a ghost, I tend to put on my cautious face. Who goes around claiming to see ghosts? Iffy people, that's who.

I know, for example, DOZENS of ghost stories.

It was very early springtime, and the run-off from the melting snow coursed down my parents driveway and created an impromptu river across it and the surrounding fields. A sudden cold snap resulted in the newly formed "river" freezing overnight, and so my dad announced that he was going to wade through it in his rubber boots and break all the ice. I'm not sure WHY he had to do this - maybe this was a terribly important task. I'm not sure. (I asked - he was cleaning out the culvert.)

My youngest brother - 13 years younger than me and still just a child in this story - was my dad's normal assistant for important "work" like breaking ice, but he was sick on the couch with a fever and episodes of Ninja Turtles. My other brother was a teenager and a friend dropped in with a truck and a brand-new driver's license and the two boys went for a drive through the farmland and the bush surrounding my parents' house.

I announced at the outset that this was a ghost story, so you know that something is going to pop up someplace, that someone will be the center of the story - will it be the sick child, dreaming in feverish innocence of what is to come? will it be my dad, stomping through the ice in the field all alone? will it be my other brother, suddenly old enough for wild, seeming freedom?

My oldest brother returned later, and was concerned. Wasn't our little brother too sick to have been outside breaking ice all afternoon? Our little brother, the one who had spent the afternoon napping feverishly on the couch - but both teenage boys had seen a small child following close behind dad as they drove by a couple of times, a small child carefully walking in the big rubber-booted footprints dad was leaving in the broken ice. And my dad had a shivery, not-alone feeling as he broke the ice, all by himself in the big white field, water running and things thawing, unseen, under the white and the ice.

I'm not in this story. I've been told this story so many times - the sick sleeping child in the house, the boys in the truck, the silent ghost child walking right behind my dad - that I can picture it in my mind, but I was already grown up and gone. My childhood books were still on the shelves, my outgrown shoes still waited by the front door but I was someplace else, I was unseen.

My kids decided to rake up the front yard this weekend - well, someone has to - and I could hear them outside as they squabbled and worked and bossed each other around. Then their dad went outside to take them for a walk and their voices were high in the air for a moment and then they rounded the corner and were gone from my sight. And I shivered in the bright autumn light, shivered in the suddenly silent air as this empty promising ghost passed by, this shivering specter of childhood's inevitable end.

It's COLD out!

2010-09-14T08:49:00.003-04:00

I can't even remember a few short weeks ago when it was so hot that simply leaving the house would cause my brain to melt.

Susanne tagged me! I haven't done a tag in AGES, but look!

1. Nimm das nächste Buch in deiner Nähe mit mindestens 123 Seiten. Take the book that’s next to you that has at least 123 pages.
2. Schlage Seite 123 auf. Open page 123.
3. Suche den fünften Satz auf der Seite. Look for the fifth sentence on that page.
4. Poste die nächsten drei Sätze. Post the next three sentences.
5. Wirf das Stöckchen an fünf Blogger weiter. Tag five more bloggers.

All right. Let's see what's on the top of my to-read pile... "Five Mile House" by Karen Novak.

She uncovered her eyes and straightened her posture, trying to check her wavering, translucent reflection in the plastic. She couldn't focus. The heat took on a sudden density like a vital energy coalescing about her, hemming her in.

Hm. That's a lot of dense, thick adjectives. I may have lost interest. I signed the book out of the library because I tend to switch my reading diet to All Ghost Stories at this time of year, it being ghost story season and all. Just as a sad story is best for winter, a story that's all about unsettled spirits is best for fall.

I see ghosts - of a sort - all the time. There will be a kid running down the street and I'll think, with a start, that it's Justin from grade 10 math or Tracy from grade nine phys ed and then the kid will get closer and I'll realize that it's the child of Justin or Tracy (or whoever) and that Justin or Tracy have now lost their known face, are turning into something different and unrecognizable. There are people I know, of course, who have kept their faces their whole lives, but it's hard to tell who you get to be, if your child running down the street now has the family face and you have a borrowed, softening mask.

I still have my own face - I think, although I ran into a highschool acquaintance the other day and she absolutely did not recognize me - but not one of my children will ever be mistaken for me, being either too blond or too male and not one of them looking terribly like me in the first place. But what used to haunt me was the idea that someday they would be unknown to me, that their minds might be mysterious places, back when they were small and so easily known. And of course, this day has happened - my oldest child is now someone who is both known to me and who is utterly unknown, her own thoughts happening and kept away. And meanwhile, her sunny countenance smiles out from my picture of her on my shelf, a relic from a known time, a little ghost that whispers at me.

It is September. It is growing cold outside, it is growing cold within.

Look at me, posting all over the place

2010-09-09T17:04:00.001-04:00

I wrote a melancholy piece on the end of childhood AND summer over here.
And there are new posts up at the lunch box blog!
We all have colds. Krep!
xo

Back to School!

2010-09-07T11:36:00.005-04:00

Today is the first day of school! My oldest headed off none-too-enthusiastically in the middle of a thunderstorm AND in her new glasses and I headed... in.. to the schoolroom none-too-enthusiastically, but it was a lovely morning. I hope my Girl's day is going well too, poor thing.

Here's the schoolroom right now!

Remember the weird doorway to nowhere? My husband put BOOKSHELVES IN IT:

They can quickly come out in case we need to use the Door To Nowhere for some strange reason. My desk is STILL a big mess, since a) that is My Way and b) the schoolroom computer is out of commission. My mother-in-law MADE the little mini couch from a weird half-bathtub store display, and The Baby keeps her books on the shelf right above.

The schoolroom shelves:
I took these pictures at the beginning of last week and now the fan picture makes me laugh bitterly. It was WARM last week! This week, we have the woodstove lit.

My favorite part of the homeschool room

All of the books in the window are for our Middle Ages history this year.

I'm part of a new group blog! It's all about the trials and tribulations of packing school lunches, and my first post is up. If it was a group blog about homeschool lunches, it would just be page after page of pictures of grilled cheese sandwiches.

Thanks!

2010-09-02T17:55:00.002-04:00

What a lot of nice birthday wishes! It was a great day.

I wrote about back-to-school and what changes and what does not at 5 Minutes for Parenting today. And now I am going to go make supper, which never changes.

The Middle

2010-08-31T08:53:00.008-04:00

It's my birthday! Again!

I was talking to my middle brother last night and he said that he barely notices his birthdays anymore. TO HECK WITH THAT, I say. Any day that gets me presents and cake and extra attention is MY SORT OF DAY.

My husband got me up at FIVE THIRTY to give me my present, which was a red camera. I will try my best not to break this one, unlike our past two cameras, which I dropped over and over again. Nicely done, self.

I'm 38 today!
Note my spiffy new glasses and that I am a bit sunburned.

I got some other nice presents, too - my parents gave me a big stack of cookbooks and some mixing bowls, the Girl gave me some non-latex kitchen gloves (God bless her practical little soul) and a beautiful card and The Boy built me what he describes as "a steampunk pirate ship" from Lego, with instructions that I am to give it back when he needs the pieces. The Baby gave me nothing. "You get to spend all your time with me," she crabbed. "Isn't that ENOUGH?"

HA HA! That kid.

Whatever gross black misery dog was haunting me all spring/summer seems to have passed by my house. My birthday finds me happy and content again, which is a nice present itself, which is enough. Here I am in the middle - God willing and the creeks don't rise - of my life. It feels surprisingly prefect. It feels surprisingly like where I should be.

I Am Going To Post Again One Of These Days

2010-08-27T08:45:00.003-04:00

... but I just wanted to draw your attention to two reviews I've done this week:
1. I reviewed one of those cracker/chip hybrids
and
2. I reviewed a children's book store AND I'm giving away a $25 gift certificate!
xo

Big Old Yarn Ball

2010-08-24T16:51:00.002-04:00

One of the big problems about not really posting for ages is that I have too much to write about and then when I do sit down to write - which I have done, several times - I find myself staring blankly at the screen, unsure of where to even possibly start.

So I'll start here.

Hey, I got glasses last week! It's been kind of funky. I wasn't AWARE that I needed glasses - I mean, I'd noticed that my remembrances of what things used to look like were sharper and finer, but I'd just credited that to The Cruel Wages Of Time. Then I went to see the optometrist for the first time in YEARS and she kind of freaked out. Glasses ahoy!

What else is new? Well.

A dear friend's son was nightmarishly injured last week, the poor kid. The Baby is wearing a holter monitor for the next couple of days, horribly enough. She had a scheduled appointment with her pediatrician and then a little unscheduled appointment with the holter monitor lady and welcome to Hell, me!

We also went to a family reunion on the weekend, a reunion of my mother-in-law's mother's people. It was held at a lodge that some of my mother-in-law's cousins have owned since the 1940s, and we were given a cabin for the weekend. The Boy and The Baby came with me but The Girl was left behind with my parents because she suddenly got very sick, and so we get there and OF COURSE there was another sole 11 year old girl cousin. That's the way these things work.

The property was gorgeous and rambling and full of winding streams and weeping willows and beds of shale and I was so totally disoriented, thanks to my new glasses. A few months ago, I'd looked through an old stereoscope and was baffled - what were they trying to accomplish with everything all lined up like that? - and now I realize that I've been seeing the world oddly flat for YEARS. So now I suddenly have to carefully pick my way through this bizarrely 3-D environment, with the ground looming up menacingly at me.

I managed not to break my neck.

The Boy showed me his new rock skipping skills and then we discovered that practically everyone of my husband's first cousins once removed had very thoughtfully ALSO had eight year old sons, so he took off in an enormous pack of young cousins, much like lions.

The next day, the Boy and the Baby and I walked out to a very miniature peninsula, this small thread of land stretching out into the massive lake, and everything was vividly in front of me, the trees and the fish silver in the water and everything suddenly so shockingly, dizzyingly clear. I could barely make my way and meanwhile the kids ran up ahead, ran over the bridges and past the spot where the woolen mill once stood and were gone from sight.

The Winner Of The Nursing Top Is....

2010-08-16T10:16:00.002-04:00

Julie - who JUST had her brand new baby boy, so why not go congratulate her! - from And They Never Slept Again. Thanks again to BumbleWee Nursing Wear!

This Is A Post About Homeschool Curriculum

2010-08-14T12:26:00.002-04:00

... and I cannot believe I am writing it. But several people have asked me to, unfathomably enough, and so HERE I AM.

My homeschooled kids are in grade three and senior kindergarten this year. My other kid is in grade six, but her edu-ma-cation is the responsibility of the public school system and not me (and they are doing a fine job, too). Here's what we're doing for the other two, but nothing I say should be taken as an endorsement - we haven't USED this stuff yet, for the most part:

Language Arts:
The Baby and I are halfway through Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons. I'm not wildly in love with the book, but it's working: The Baby IS reading. She's going to move into the Pathway Readers grade one book, since nothing says rockin' good times like an Amish reader with no blasphemous illustrations of human beings. But the kids LOVE the books and their low-key stories (WILL Levi tell his dad he left the calf barn gate open?). The Boy uses them too, and we're also doing some novel studies - I believe we're going to do the Chronicles of Narnia before Christmas, and we'll see what happens from there.

I don't use spelling programs. I think that spelling is largely a skill picked up from writing and reading. I DO have the Boy put any misspelled words in a little homemade dictionary, but that's it - and he's a fairly solid speller. We also use the Explode the Code books and they focus on how words are put together. The poor kid will also be using a workbook called Funny Fairy Tale Grammar, and we're going to be reading a big pile of funny books about punctuation. We're starting using the WriteShop books this year, having HATED HATED HATED the big homeschool writing program last year (flimsy! boring!). And we use the Handwriting Without Tears books - The Baby is in the grade one printing and The Boy is starting cursive. Moving on.

Math
We like the American edition of the Singapore Math books - first, because they're logically structured (one subject moves briskly to the next) and secondly because topics are introduced without much review - this probably wouldn't work well for most kids, but they were highly recommended to us as being the ideal curriculum for kids who are gifted in math. I was scandalized when experienced teachers of my acquaintance told me that I could SKIP WHOLE SECTIONS of the math books as soon as he mastered the ideas - but the wisdom of the idea soon became apparent to me - instead of being complacent/bored, he's constantly being challenged. Because the editions we use are American, we skip the bits on measurement and money and substitute appropriate worksheets.

We also play store a lot. My husband is actually building a five-year-old-sized shop counter in the schoolroom today, and it's going to hold her cash register and toy food and such. We frequently play store in french quite a bit, which is funny.

And my kids really love to play math games on the computer - they're big fans of Cool Math and we use the Nelson math site a lot (Nelson math is the math curriculum the Girl's school uses.).

French/Other Languages
We're using the Rosetta Stone software. We also play bingo in french, sing french songs and as mentioned, play store in French. We also print little books off Enchanted Learning as required.
My kids like languages a lot, so we have other other language materials around for their use and we're starting Song School Latin this year.

Geography
I think that geography is really poorly taught by the school system and what is actually a very interesting topic has all the fun and interest sucked out of it. This year, we're using a combination of Hands-On Geography, Learning Geography Through Art and Eat Your Way Around The World, as well as storybooks from various countries and using the atlas, globe and working their way through simple, but effective, Canadian map workbooks.

History
I LOVE OUR HISTORY PROGRAM SO MUCH. We're working through Pandia Press's History Odyssey - this year, they're in Level One/The Middle Ages, and they are REALLY excited about it. We're using a ton of stuff with it and I can't even list it all.

"But what about your belief in the importance of Canadian history for Canadian kids?" my imaginary reader asks. Well.
1) It does have a month-long focus on the peoples of North America during the Middle Ages so we're good, thanks.
and
2) As part of what we're doing in Geography, we're going to be reading Canadian-based books throughout the year.

Science
I also love our science program so much - and again, it's from Pandia Press. This year, we're using R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey Earth And Space. I like this science program very, very much - not only is it a scientifically-sound, experiment-based program, but it's FUN to do.

We're also going to be working our way through Simple Machines before Christmas and a book of plant experiments after, and we'll be going on nature walks - oh GOODY - several times a week. The Boy also has a bridge kit that he'll be playing with and I also read the kids piles of science books because they like them. And The Boy has a table set up in the basement where he is allowed to take electronics apart and make his weird little experiments.

Art And Music
I cobble together my own art program, but they do a LOT of art projects during the rest of the school day as well - their history program focuses a lot on historically-based crafts and looking at art and obviously their geography program is very art-focused, too. Beyond that, we're going to be using Drawing With Children and some of the zillions of art project and art books we have laying around the house. I love Deep Space Sparkle Art - there are such GREAT GREAT art projects on that site. Oh, and our kiln will be up and running! There's nothing tidier than working with clay with kids.

As far as music goes: we're going to be listening to medieval music, naturally enough. I also really, REALLY love the Classics For Kids website - what a great site! - and The Boy is going to learn how to play the recorder this year, which will probably lead to me getting a lot of headaches and feeling sorry for myself. And we sing a lot.

That's not all that we're going to do, but it's the main chunk of it. And now I am tired.

I wrote a post yesterday!

2010-08-13T06:28:00.003-04:00

It is - warning! - about spiders. And spooky woods.

If you're a breastfeeding mom, I'm having a nice clothing giveaway.

It's EARLY! I am never awake this early! It's all foggy early morning outside. Weirdness. I'm going to go drink my coffee on the porch all by myself.

I Interrupt Me Moping Around

2010-08-12T08:38:00.002-04:00

...to give away a nice nursing top. So if you're nursing, hurry on over to enter.

EPIC EPIC EPIC

2010-08-11T16:34:00.005-04:00

I was weeding a box of books that my mom dropped off - leftovers from my teenage days - and lo and behold: there was my favorite book of quotations from my late teens! Complete with circling, underlining and margin notes! Yes, it was like I was given a MAGICAL ticket back to the most PRETENTIOUS TIME IN MY LIFE!

For example:

Some rainy winter Sundays when there's a little boredom, you should always carry a gun. Not to shoot yourself, but to know exactly that you're always making a choice.
Lina Wertmuller

HAHAHAHAH. Picture me underlining this. I am seventeen. I am really, really thin. I wear mostly black turtlenecks and a lot of dark eye makeup. I am NO FUN AT ALL.

The flesh is weary, alas, and I've read all the books.
Stephane Mallarme

The HECK I HAD. And also "the flesh is weary"? I was 17. My "flesh" was the OPPOSITE of "weary."

But when I don't smoke I scarcely feel as if I'm living. I don't feel as if I'm living unless I'm killing myself.
Russell Hoban, the guy who wrote the Frances books

I am so, so glad that Twitter wasn't around in 1989. I'd have had an account - no doubt with a gloomy, Edward Scissorhands-ish avatar - from which I'd do nothing but repeat depressing quotes all day. And also: I HAVE NEVER SMOKED, NOT EVEN CASUALLY. What the HECK, olden-days self?

It used to be a good hotel, but this proves nothing - I used to be a good boy.
Mark Twain

HAHAHAH! STILL funny! World-weary cynicism now makes me roll my eyes, things that I used to think where SUPER deep now strike me as goofy - but smart-assery? Age cannot wither it nor custom stale.

Today, I got to sit in our gazebo in the backyard all by myself and read a detective book in the cheerful midday while my kids all had fun elsewhere and I felt quite contented, even in the midst of a rough time. And tonight I have the cheering knowledge that I am not THAT girl anymore, that I am wry and relaxed and if not quite happy at the moment, I know that I am working my way back there. End quote.

Social Disease

2010-08-10T12:20:00.005-04:00

So I watched The Bachelor Pad last night, where THE WORST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD - like Machiavelli, but with bikinis and endless booze and apparently really severe head injuries - all crowded together into a house to win luv/a pile of money. And now my eyes have herpes*, which serves me right for letting my boredom and lethargy lull me into watching such z-grade Bread and Circus crap.

*Okay, no they don't. I was EXAGGERATING for COMIC EFFECT.

"Hey Beck," you might be asking (you're not, but let's pretend), "You're not writing much these days. What's up? Have you wearied of the glamour of blogging?" And no, no I have not. But I am kind of really depressed these days, which is less fun than it sounds and also not worth writing about. My feeeeeelings! It's being dealt with, but it would be totally self-indulgent to write about it (all grim, heavy adjectives) and then I'd want to kick my own butt when I get feeling better.

This means I'm not writing a lot these days. But what with all the not writing and everything, I have a lot of new time for other low-key, depressed person hobbies, like genealogy. I'm mostly trying to track down my father's German-American grandmother - with no luck - because she's the only dead-end I have, and my father is unenthusiastic about the whole thing since she was a dour, unlikeable, hard-luck woman, so much so that my grandfather ran away at 13 and joined the actual, literal circus.

Character is a funny thing, isn't it? My lost German-American great-great-grandmother had a lot of kids, was rural poor and lost her husband young (he was HIT BY A TRAIN) and was nasty-tempered and sour. My mother's great-grandmother ALSO had a lot of kids, was rural poor, lost her husband young - and was a lovely, high-spirited, funny woman who is still missed now, half a century later. And that haunts me, the idea that similar experiences can end in such different people, the idea that the world breaks some people and not others. And now, of course, we can watch fame-hungry dimbulbs break themselves for our entertainment. I'd feel sympathy, but I'm all lazy and stuff, so I'm just going to point and laugh. Haw haw!

If You Don't Like Conversations You Might Want To Skip This Chapter

2010-08-04T09:02:00.003-04:00

Understood Betsy is one of those slightly forgotten childrens' books - forgotten not because it's dated or unreadable but simply because it's in a slightly crowded literary area. It concerns the adventures of a young orphan girl who goes to live with relatives on a farm and if this sounds familiar to you, it's probably because of a certain red-haired orphan who I like but honestly not quite as much as I like ol' Elizabeth Ann.

So anyhow. At the beginning of the book, Elizabeth Ann is living with her maiden aunts in a small city and her Aunt Frances is HILARIOUSLY fussy and over-protective and fear-coddling and as a result, Elizabeth Ann is small and pale and neurotic and terrified. Aunt Frances has learned from parenting books that Talking About Feelings Is Good and so Elizabeth Ann is now a master of talking about her feelings in great, excruciating detail, and Aunt Frances thinks this is proof that she has done a dandy job raising the young fussbudget.

Here I pause to laugh hysterically. I LOVE this book.

Mild disaster ensues, and Elizabeth Ann ends up being shipped to Vermont to live with the dreaded Putney cousins who live on a farm and make children WORK. The Putney cousins promptly rechristen her Betsy, give her a kitten, send her to a one-room schoolhouse and through wholesome activity and gentle work and independence and learning her own strengths, Betsy stops being such a neurotic mess and instead becomes a self-reliant, brave and loving girl. It's a wonderful book and also a bracing tonic to certain parenting ideas.

I have to fight what I privately call "Aunt Frances Tendencies" in myself ALL the time. Yes, I am a loving, imaginative mother, but I am also an overcautious, overprotective mother, too. And while I live in an area where children are given a TERRIFYING amount of freedom - seriously, it's shocking for me to live here with my ideas of what's appropriate and to see what kids are allowed to do - I constantly have to remind myself that wrapping my kids in bubblewrap won't exactly result in the desired adults, EITHER.

The Girl is in 4H this year. 4H is a rural youth group (in case you don't know) that has classes (so far, The Girl has taken Cooking With Chocolate, Weaving and my personal favorite, Tractor Safety) and also teaches the kids how to handle livestock. The Girl has been assigned her own personal calf - appointed to her shortly after birth and now several months old and FEISTY - and she is going to show her calf at the end of the month and be JUDGED on her animal handling abilities.

We dropped her off at a calf day on a local farm this past weekend and when we came to get her that night, her arm was covered in lurid bruises. "The dumb calf kicked me!" she said, outraged, and I felt sick. I had put my child in harm's way. But she did not want to go home - she had WORK to do - and leapt - all 55 pounds of her - into the calf pen full of running calves and made her way to the back where her own grumpy calf was dashing around. And I stood there squeaking and making Aunt Frances noises ("Look out! Maybe you'd better get out of there!") until I realized that I wasn't HELPING and went OUT, leaving my child.

Being a parent can be very hard.

I read - and rolled my eyes at - someone today who wrote, outraged, about big families making their kids "co-parent" their siblings and help with housework. Yeah, God forbid our kids feel like they have some responsibility within their families, that part of being a family means WORKING within that family (although let me limit that with saying that I don't think children should RAISE their siblings.). I've met one too many kids raised up to feel that the world owes them stuff, that other people are just here for their use and their pleasure. The ultimate job as parents is to raise kids who will one day be good at being adults, and part of adulthood is being able to work, to balance our desires with our responsibilities and to know which risks are worth taking. Helping a small sibling get ready for church is not an unbearable burden. Leaping back into the calf pen was - oh, I HOPED - a worthwhile risk.

My own Girl triumphantly led her calf out of the calf barn, having caught it, harnessed it and marched it out WITHOUT help. She led it around the path, and she was COVERED in mud but her head was high and her back was straight and the calf sulked behind her and she patted its grumpy head with her bruised arm and it nuzzled against her, trusting her. She stood, small for 11, a person who could take something hard and scary and master it and I was proud of her, searingly proud - and proud of myself, too, proud that I had walked out of that barn, that I had let her have this moment.

Betsy ends her book happy. My Girl ended her day happy, too, the bruises fading to nothingness on her arm, her muddy boots hosed off on the porch and she fell asleep with her lamp on and her calf's harness next to her bed. I stood and felt like waking her up to talk over her feelings about the day, Aunt Frances-style, and instead I pulled her blanket up and turned off her light and walked down the hallway, happy myself.