Georgia's Journal

Children are not allowed in the front seat like they were when I was little. Because a short stature slips out of the seat belt and because of too many deaths by air bag, children these days wait 'til they're heavier and longer. I wasn't certain that this was recommended or compulsory by the state. And there's a noticeable lack of information on the internet.

Savannah's been begging to get up front. I'd heard of an 80 lb. minimum, and she's still 78. I do want to keep her safe. But since I knew the chances of her getting hurt up front were really slim, I was actually insisting she wait because I didn't want her invading my space. Georgia-land is another universe where all my moods can roller coaster without anyone else's getting in the way. The music and the cup-holders are mine. But mostly I didn't want her to catch me talking to myself.

Then our neighbor said the minimum is 60 lbs; since I don't have a huge resolve on non-moral issues, I said ok. Y'all can imagine how stoked she is to sit up front. She drops these hints into her psyche about college life, her dream home, and marriage. Her toothbrush keeps appearing with mine and Brad's in our faux-vintage toothbrush holder, etc... She wants to be an adult. When she doesn't have a girlfriend with her at group gatherings, she shadows me, waiting for me to slip and say something I'd only say to other grown women.

She sat up front on a 3 hour trip to our friends in Santa Margarita. She made me nervous for the first hour. Asking me quesitons, I'd suddenly realize that I hadn't been focused on the road. If I'd tail-gated anyone, and they'd stopped short, it could've been bad. That was about 2 weeks ago.

Not only have I gotten more used to it, but I've realized that Brad's prediction was right. She and I talk more. Of course I knew this. But now I know what it really means. She not only shares more of herself, but I have a captive audience! I have one of my proteges belted in beside me. I can tell her how if people would just stand up straight, they'd take 5 pounds off the gut. (She says, "So when I slump, I'm really 83 lbs.?" I say, "No, no, no. Visually.") I can tell her that if she meets a boy, and his father isn't very nice to his mother, stay away from him! Or that even at 35, even I don't know which strangers I can trust.

Shortly, she'll have to take turns with Seth and Arwen for the front seat, which means another fight. Anything of value to children can be used as leverage to get good behavior. So there'll still be times that I can sit alone up front and talk to myself.

Things that Savannah has said lately, "If I were a hobo, I'd come to Trader Joe's all the time, for the samples."

...a week passes...

"If I were a hobo, I'd go to Safeway for dessert, for the free cookie."

I sat at my desk overhearing a conversation (behind me) that Arwen had with herself in the mirror. Most of it I couldn't make out, as she whispered the whole thing.

"You're copying me, no you're copying me.... always causing.... looking in the mirror..."

spitting, grunting, slow motion vocal noises

British Airways apologized to Mirko Fischer for the way they treated him when he was asked to move out of a seat beside a child travelling alone. They also handed him 2,161 pounds.

Their policy for protecting children travelling alone states that a lone male cannot sit beside one of these children. Mr. Fischer was travelling with his wife on the other side of him.

He said: “I felt humiliated and outraged. They accuse you of being some kind of child molester just because you are sitting next to someone.”

Concern for the children is legitimate, but so many people in policy making positions swing on the pendulum too far. For the same reason, instead of teaching moderation, the culture I grew up in taught that any amount of liquor was evil because of alcoholism in my family and so many of my friends’ families. (It was a dry county but crawling with crystal meth.)

It’s also why you see almost no male teachers on the elementary school level. Arwen had a male substitute in kindergarten several months ago. He was about 35 or 40, and he left a strange picture in my memory sitting in that rocking chair, eerily comical. I can only imagine how many strange looks and questions he got from the mothers. Sadly, the lack of men means almost no male role models in the system for our boys. If Seth didn’t have his daddy to look up to, he would have his P.E. teacher, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Mario.

When I’ve run without music, it’s only because I left home in a hurry and forgot to take my iphone. Then the exercise is surprisingly hard. I get much higher with the music playing and transport myself somewhere else entirely. It’s what makes it easy for me to pretend I’m the only one at the gym, which makes the experience a lot more enjoyable.

Without music, I can’t stop thinking about what I’ll eat for lunch, at what time into the run that sweat starts to make my elbow pits itch, and how that girl is running on her toes. That’s not good for her knees. Maybe I’ll have a generous piece of lemon bread with lemon curd. That’ll be half my lunch there….

Relying on music means a runner isn’t building any mental discipline. Ever since this idea occurred to me a few years ago, it has felt like a challenge calling out, small…. but big to me. Today was my first effort to run without music. Since following a twitter account that chronicles building more running time, running and walking certain intervals seemed like the right distraction from how looong it takes for lunch to get here, even though I just had almonds in the van.

I didn’t miss the music today. I did well, until my 3rd little jog, I took off my sweaty glasses and suddenly felt no focus, literally. Without being able to visually focus on SOMEthing easily, my body began wavering in it’s gait and rhythm. I began subtly “flailing.” My eyes found a cupholder on a machine in front of me, and I was able to run more steadily. Next run, contact lenses.

25 minutes total: 3 min warm up. Jog 3 at 5mph/Walk 3 at 4mph. Repeat cycle and jog at 5.2 mph, then 5.4 mph. Last walk I put the incline on 4. On the cool down, I slowed to 3mph. After, I like stretching my calves by placing one foot on the end of the treadmill, dipping my heal below the edge then standing up on my toes, several times. Feels good.

I came home to stretch, ‘cause I’m too self-concious to do that at the gym. At home, I do some yoga stretching, then I take my time getting into the splits (front and side.) My left leg is still notably favored in the front split. I should post a photo of Seth in the side split. I don’t know where he gets it.

Since I turned off the comments on this blog, I liberated myself, free to write about whatever I want with whatever opinions I have. It was always my blog, but out of insecurity was born a watered down blog. My voice seemed foggy and dim to me. It’s a shame.

I didn’t get a lot of comments anyway, probably because the content didn’t encourage discussion, surely not edgy enough, for good or bad. I’ve engaged in very little, if any, online conflict. And whenever I was tempted, it was only because the other person was taking me way too seriously. (Since turning off comments, I have wondered what it would be like to get into a virtual knock-down-drag-out. It’s just an amusing thought though. Virtual people are still very real people to me.)

Now it’s more of a diary that anyone is welcome to come and read. Once I began to feel like an adult, at about 22, (and always when I’m feeling really lucid with just the right amount of caffeine) I realized I don’t have anything to hide. Why should a blog be any different?

It’s not only turning off the comments that has changed my own voice. Some credit goes to the 3 hours alone that I get 5 days a week now. I read 3 or 4 times more than I did a year ago. I can get lost in the voices of other writers when the house is cool and quiet.

If a blog could have a physical location, I feels that mine has literally moved. The blog packed up and picked up, and here I am in a new place. The changes in content and writing are subtle, especially to someone stumbling in from a search on “parenting” or “Paul Auster”. Only some of you will notice.

After reading the opening of Life and Times of Michael K by J. M. Coetzee,

“The first thing the midwife noticed about Michael K when she helped him out of his mother into the world was that he had a hare lip. The lip curled like a snail’s foot, the left nostril gaped. Obscuring the child for a moment from its mother, she prodded open the tiny bud of a mouth and was thankful to find the palate whole.

To the mother she said: ‘You should be happy, they bring luck to the household.’ But from the first Anna K did not like the mouth that would not close and the living pink flash it bared to her. She shivered to think of what had been growing in her all these months. The child could not suck from the breast and cried with hunger….”

I thought, “This is not gonna end well.” But it has been a breeze of a read, which is always a good sign. And as the author has several books to his name, I have lots to look forward to :)

After going for about 3 years, I still have to control the frequency of my trips to Trader Joe’s. I go about twice a week, one big trip, one little. This is ok. When I baked weekly for Six Apart, I’d also pop in on a Tuesday afternoon for sugar or butter. And let me tell ya, you don’t take 3 young and hungry children into a grocery store on a whim. But I like to bake, and I love Trader Joe’s.

When Brad’s father was very ill and his family needed him, Brad went to Mississippi in early 2008, not knowing how long he’d be there. (This is important, as I stayed behind with our children, not knowing how long I’d be alone.) His father passed away three weeks later; a week after that, they had the funeral. Brad was gone for a month. There were a couple of people in the church who offered to help me with the children. And I don’t mind saying yes, but it always seemed “like more trouble than it was worth,” as my mother would say. Am I really gonna get a babysitter just so I can go for a run? My people don’t really do that.

Instead, I have a friend who was going through the same experience at the same time. Only her father-in-law lived a few miles away from them and was dying of a different cancer. We visited each other during those weeks, and she needed my help for a couple of weekends. Her boys came to spend the night so she and her husband could have time alone and time for the funeral. I wouldn’t trade this for anything. Is it odd that we were given this experience simultaneously? Or perfectly planned by a God who knows the comforts we need?

People were not meant to raise children alone. Ask a mother who’s husband is travelling for long periods of time, or divorced or just plain abandoned. There is a period of time they’ll tell you, even decades later they remember it, when everything felt black. It’s hard to find joy, even in children you love, when there’s no one sharing it beside you. It never got that bad in 2008. I knew Brad would come home.

Two parents who agree that children deserve respect will keep each other in check. We don’t hit our children. I understand the desire though to knock two heads together. I choose not to. Brad’s daily presence in our lives keeps me on this childrearing path, and vice versa. If a second parent isn’t around, who is there physically to be witness and confessor? Imagine when a single parent doesn’t believe that God is watching either.

My days definitely got murky. I clench my teeth in times of stress. My language internally isn’t clean, and I’m not proud. I’d often put the kids to bed early. There is something endlessly sad and tiring about doing and serving and teaching children when there’s no adult conversation to balance your days. Driving round for my errands, I’d sit in a fog at traffic lights. When the light turned green, I’d have to slowly make my brain tell the rest of me, “Green means go.” And then I’d go.

Later, looking over our spending during that month, I’d been to Trader Joe’s 16 times. That’s 4 trips a week. I’d broken a record! The grocery store never goes anywhere. There will always be women there, and a few men who don’t mind the company of women. We can share it with you, but it still feels like ours. I meet my Trader Joe’s friends on Tuesdays. It’s where I met Lucy who trades me Spanish lessons for help on her spoken English, which is already excellent, and the writing she does in her classes. Arwen is crazy about S., who always gives her attention. S., flirts with the burly men who come by, and the women pretend not to notice. I haven’t seen K. there in a while. I think things are looking up for her, so her routine must’ve changed. And there’s A. who works at the sample bar. She’s the one who feeds us! I’ve met others that I’d know by name but rarely see.

I can’t stand going into Costco anymore, the vast headroom, heavy carts, unparalleled quantities, impulse buys, and clothes I can’t try on - but especially, no one to talk to. Safeway is the same way. Nobody knows my name. They look at the receipt and mispronounce it, which does not offend me. It’s just a stark contrast to the intimacy of the small scale at Trader Joe’s, where they’ll wave across the store if they see me.

My mother no longer had a use for the matching canisters that she used when I was growing up. So I claimed them! In shipping them last week, she nested them together in the box, with their lids, as they're different sizes. Before everyone came home from school, I took them out as I'd found them and left them sitting on the table.

Later, while I was at my desk, I heard Arwen at the table. She picked up the biggest lid and said, "Huh?" Picked up lid #2 and said, "Huh?" Picked up lid number #3 and said, "Huh?" After the 4th, she put them back together and walked away satisfied.

~~~

The children's bathroom has a troublesome toilet, that is, Seth stores his movements and only lets them out every other day. It seems to work ok for Seth's system, but not the plumbing!

Arwen on the other hand poops like a rabbit. Well, she used to. When it got stopped up three days ago, Arwen was the last one who'd gone, but when I suggested this, she became agitated, "No! It wasn't me!" I said again that she was the last one who'd gone. I was not angry about it. She was not in trouble. It's not her fault she's growing and eating and the pipes aren't big enough! But she wouldn't have it. Refused to concede. I could tell, the clean and proper lady in her was insulted! The Peanut stopping up the toilet was unthinkable! If I had pressed the issue, she may have denied ever having pooped in her life.

To me, sincerity means letting people see your flaws, your confusion, even ineptitude. And somehow, it means stopping up the toilet, and you still refuse to admit such a crime against ladyhood, even though your mother can see right through you.

The title is a lovely rhyming quote from Ruhlman.com, food blogger. He has this to say about salt. And just as importantly, answering the sort of question asked by people who don’t seem to know how to think naturally.

“The fact is, we have struggled to make our food so inexpensive that we’ve basically decided to grow cardboard, which, if you’ve ever tasted it, requires plenty of salt, especially if you intend to serve it to guests. Why do you think food is so cheap? Because there’s nothing of value in it! Including flavor. Thus, the salt.”

…and one more thought of note…

“My belief is this: if you eat natural foods, you don’t need to worry about salt. Period.”

While cleaning up my emails, I came across a lovely and hilarious conversation from a year and a half ago.

Seth: When are we going to stop going to church?

Savannah: When you die.

Arwen: I don’t want to die!

Seth: Yes— everybody dies.

Arwen: (quietly) I don’t want to die.

Seth: Well, you’re gonna!

Savannah, as we passed a graveyard: They don’t go to church now.

Daddy: Don’t be morbid.

Seth, concerning the dead: They’re close to church.

I am too old to be assuming that my problems will just go away on their own. In many ways, the Peter Principle is showing up in my own personal growth. I’m not really fouling up operations in the home, but isn’t it easy for stay-at-home-mothers, probably the industry most populated with under-qualified managers, to disguise our more inept days? “Look at what I got done the last two days!” Well, let’s just not highlight what I haven’t done today.

But I’m digressing. Back to my personal growth… For three months I’ve gone to bed queasy. No, not pregnant. I really just thought it would go away, and that’s what stuns me, that I’m thinking like a 19 year old whose decision making sector of the brain hasn’t fully developed.

But a trip back “home” always clears some junked up part of the mind, and this holiday, Mama Burton, Brad’s maternal grandmother, was singing the praises of apple cider vinegar and honey to cure acid reflux. When I got home-home this week, I Googled for symptoms and sure enough, I very likely have some acid reflux, although still mild. The thought of giving up chocolate and caffeine, two big offenders on the list, leaves me pretty dismayed. Going to try the vinegar and honey first. Will update on progress soon.

Arwen, 5 1/2: “Mama? Do gypsies look into the future? And take your money?” I had to think a few seconds about what this child could possibly be talking about. And then I remembered we’d been listening to poetry in the van that night, Langston Hughes. Warmed my heart.

Also that night in the van, Seth said, “I’ve gotta potty, my tooth is loose, and I’ve got a headache!” But he said it so cheerfully! Also, it’s his first loose tooth. Yay! I’d never known him to have a headache before. Turns out, he had a fever, and after he crawled into bed, I couldn’t get him back out of bed to go potty. Brad found Seth in our bathroom about 10:30 p.m. on the toilet, half asleep and babbling. I had to tell him a couple of times to get off the pot.

The next morning, home sick, Seth toggled through our family computer’s stock of wallpaper pointing out his favorites and stopped at a close-up of bamboo. He said, “The sad thing is, people are cutting this bamboo down to make paper, and the panda bears don’t have anything to eat.” Months earlier he had been near tears on his bed because he was told that panda bears have been dying off. I told him he might just work with animals when he grows up, the way he loves him. Y’all should see his top bunk covered with stuffed animals.

About the bamboo paper, I said, “Well that’s a shame, ‘cause you don’t have to make paper out of bamboo. You could make it out of other things. You could probably make it out of soybeans!” Arwen answered, “Yeah, you could make it out of a printer.”

Seth only had his cast for 4 weeks. It felt like longer. After the cast was cut off this morning, the first thing he said about his arm was, "It feels really smushed." And you can tell his right arm is slightly smaller than his left. He touched things, saying everything feels different (one hand compared to the other).

He still favors the left hand and holds his right as if the cast is still on. He says he wants to keep writing with his left. And I tell him not to worry about it; just see what happens naturally.

I'm afraid he needs another bath or two before the old shoe smell goes away.

At supper tonight: "The wise-less say stupider things than the wise."

And just before Spongebob time: "A E I O and U are boys. And Y is sooooo busy!"

Today at flag salute, Seth will find out that he's been chosen to have Pizza With the Principle. He got a "character counts" from his teacher about a week ago. He'd helped pick up some papers that flew around on a windy day, and no one asked hiim! I told Daddy, at least he does that at school! We had a chuckle.

He has been a good sport lately. Three weeks ago, he fell off the monkey bars and broke his arm. I had just signed him up for karate the day before! (They're extending the contract time while he heals.) He had also started in the running club. For every mile they run, they earn a little plastic foot to go round a necklace. For Seth, we're now calling it the "walking club" because getting tripped up in all those little feet might be bad for a broken arm. So imagine a seven-year-old, competitive little boy getting left behind, and then passed on the following laps, by all of his little competitive peers. He finally cried about it yesterday 'cause he wants to run with everyone else. I reminded him that his arm is getting better, at that very moment and that it wouldn't last forever.

Interesting consequence of breaking his right arm, he is surprisingly ambidextrous now. See an awesome example here!

Well, the big event of Arwen's sixth year is that she started kindergarten. Three and a half hours every day and a sea of scampering 5 year old playmates to choose from. Class time is no longer about mud play, kitchen toys, and dress up. And the outcome? She's exhausted. I've never seen her this tired.

She had an easy summer; the hardest day any of us had was walking to and from the drive-through dairy for ice cream.

Her first two days of kindergarten were fine. After that, she's come home with tears, near tears, talking about tears she had in class, or quite grumpy about not getting ice cream or a play date.

She won't hold my hand at the mall, saying in a shrill voice, "I'm not little! I'm not little!" She tried to pull out of my hand on the sidewalk too, until a big Harley revved his engine, and she jumped like a cat.

In another week, she'll fall into her routine. She'll go to bed early, like she's supposed to. She'll learn a couple names at school and get some homework behind her to be proud of herself. Obviously they can't understand it completely, but I think a part of a child's mind must sense, "I'm in this for the long haul."

When Amie (pronounced Ah-mee, meaning grandma) visited this summer, she and Savannah made a skirt for Arwen. Using some fabric that never quite became curtains in our house in Connecticut, they sewed a piece of elastic in by hand, and the bottom hem of the curtain became the bottom hem of the skirt.

Savannah wants to be a fashion designer. One of her babysitters told her about a school in San Francisco, and she wants to go. You can't hold 9 year olds to their dreams, (I wanted to be a detective when I was little. Of course, Savannah says, "Maybe you still can.") but I encouraged it, saying, "Yay! I could come into the City, and we could go shopping together." which is probably the best encouragement a girl could hear.

She just needs a sewing machine. Mine died several years ago in Connecticut. Savannah sits in the floor, like I did at 16. She lays out hand-me-down fabric from me. By hand, she sews clothes for her American Girl dolls.

Yes. Seth still says "Mommy" sometimes. Strange to type it, but it sounds natural for him to say it, although I can tell he's trying to use it in the right context.

Today after school he held my hand to the car and said sadly, "Whenever I think about the first Star Wars, I wanna cry."

Assuming he meant the so-far-forbidden-episode with the lava, I said, "You'll get older though, and be able to see them all."

He said, "No, I mean when Luke Skywalker.... Mister Luke Skywalker had to say goodbye to his mommy, never to see her again, and went into outer space."

Today was his second and obviously tiring day of (all-day) first grade.

Arwen is 5. She never misses a meal, first one to the table, last one to leave. This is endearing to me because she is adventurous when it comes to food (and making friends).

Her temper is as big as her appetite, but we know all the right privileges to withhold to get her best behavior out of her. She's a foot stomper, shutting her door but crying loudly enough for the sound to carry through on our behalf.

Getting herself ready these summer mornings means three ponytails (from her big sister), a bracelet on one wrist, a watch on the other, a flashy necklace, and one of my hand-me-down bags to complete the look.

She doesn't understand the newness of going off to kindergarten. She's eager to tell everyone she'll start kindergarten, but I know she can't understand the bigness of the school or the student body. We tell her that she'll see Seth in passing through the kindergarten fence. He'll wave and tell his friends, "That's my baby sister." She'll wave and say, "That's my big brother." This is the only year that all three of them will be on the same school ground.

We didn't bake them, but it was one of a few lessons Seth got today at lunch. I said if y'all want ice cream, you'll either have an egg or nuts first. (They already ate a day's worth of fruit.)

On his own initiative he put the kiddie chef coat on, and cracked his first egg into a little pan of butter. He read, yes he's reading a LOT now, the egg carton said "organic free range". He learned what a range is, where animals can run and play. He learned the song "Home on the Range" which I got stuck in my head while we were cooking. He learned that even though the butter is salted, I like to add a bit more to our eggs.

He ate it and returned to the kitchen to fry Savannah's egg also. Funny that he cracked her egg yolk but not his own. He was not intimidated by the heat, which means I had to add a little fear to the recipe.

The memory of it cancels out their squabbling in the backyard later.

I was kickin' back, digesting after supper tonight when Seth said to me, "I know what my Power is."

This sounded like superhero mythology to me, so I perked up. I could hear the capital "P" in what he said and asked him to explain.

"My Power is Strength." He loves making muscles with both arms. He's very lean. Even his tushy has about the smallest amount of fat on it that a six year old boy's tushy can have and still be a tushy. So he's all muscle, but there's no bulk in his biceps. Very cute.

He continued, "I've been getting a lot of boo boos." He showed me his latest boo boo, a scratch created by sliding on the tanbark at recess today. He reminded me that I'd once said the more boo boos he gets the stronger he'll be.

I remembered then the conversation we'd had a few weeks ago. With so much repetition, trying to get through their selective hearing, (almost always with orders) I never know how much children actually hear, my guess is, more than most parents realize. I believe they especially hear concepts, the little sponges. They can make the same request 3 and 4 times in the hope that I'll finally give them the answer they want. Then when I explain an abstract, albeit unsolicited, thought, they can grab on with their minds in the right phase of development to completely understand, and even make the practical application to themselves.

But tonight I had to correct him about our old conversation. The boo boos will make you tougher. He made his muscles. He told me that I could be tough too. I said, "Oh, no. I don't wanna be too tough. I'm a mama." He walked out of the room with arms flexed saying, "I wanna be TOUGH."

Savannah had her first piano lesson a week ago tomorrow. So I'm prepping for her second lesson. I'm not really a piano teacher, but it all falls into place, especially since she's had some music in school and played the recorder, just like I did when I was young.

I'd been waiting for a full size piano. We have a nice keyboard, one that works through Garage Band, full-sized keys, but only 4 octaves. My friend Lucy and I are exchanging Spanish lessons (para mi) for help with her English pronunciations and obscure words. (Her English is very good.) She is learning piano from her husband. She is motivated and ambitious, and I'm grateful for those qualities' rubbing off on me. She was my impetus for finally sitting down to Savannah's first lesson.

And wouldn't you know it, I now have the option to choose between two different pianos which need homes, for free. I've yet to get contact numbers, and they could have very well found new homes already. But it's lovely how these things seem to work out.

On a related topic, I spent some time singing a week ago. I cleaned the kitchen with Emmylou Harris on, and when I finished cleaning, I had to just sit down and sing. She demanded it. I noticed a long time ago that my voice is much better with a strong dose of confidence. Last Monday, I sung with more confidence than I've ever felt. It was so uplifting that it made my stomach hurt. And I've actually avoided doing it in again in the last week. I'm hoping for singing lessons, but I have more pressing projects right now.

But as a result of the singing, I did pick up my guitar; it had been a year. Then when I tried to tune the thing, the second string broke. The strings were old anyway. This brought me yesterday to our music shop on Main street which I've thought of going into for the last 3 years. I got the strings and a guitar stand to keep it out and easy to pick up again, for anyone in the family who wants to play.

My nine year old approached me this afternoon while I was reading and told me, "In 5th grade, we get to dissect a squid and owl pellets."

"Owl pellets?" I asked. I assumed she meant owl poop.

"You don't know what owl pellets are?" she asked suddenly. And there it is, I could see it. She loves to find something she knows that I don't.

She explained that they will dissect the indigestible parts of the mouse from the owl's stomach, bones, hair and such... I looked at her in disbelief and asked, "What?" a couple of times.

This is disgusting to me. Really glad she's getting a great education but glad for once that mine was apparently not as good as it could've been. All we ever dissected were frogs. I googled owl pellets. She's right, of course. I was taken to a site that marketed the pellets for sale in bulk to classrooms, along with a book called Owl Vomit.

Yesterday she dug for worms in The Pit in our backyard. She designated their family roles based on size. Holding earthworms in her palm she pointed, "This is the mama, and this is the baby."

In our brotherless hour today we had a date at Starbucks. Arwen got the vanilla milk and little vanilla scone. She also picked up a chocolate milk for Seth. (I hadn't even thought to take him anything! Trying to be frugal.) So she nibbled her scone and drank her vanilla milk and said in her 4 year old accent, "Did you take a bite of that and then drink your coffee? It's really good together." My scone was maple; I took a bite and drank my coffee. I agreed. It's very good together.

Conversation 1

Seth, sitting with me in the van outside a Starbucks, upon seeing Army personnel in their camouflage: "Look! It's the Army!"

Then trying to call out to them through the closed window: "Did you fight for Lincoln?"

~~~~~

Conversation 2

Seth: "I know why you make cookies for Daddy to take to work.
Me: "Why?"
Seth: "So he can share them with his classmates."

Seth said this morning, "Did you know that nothing kills rock?"

I started thinking about how rock could be blown up, mining for coal or changing the landscape for roadways. And what words can quickly describe this while I'm trying to get them all to school on time?

But then he says paper can't kill rock. Aaahhh. Paper can't kill rock. "But dynamite blows up rock, Seth." I showed him a thumbs up and demonstrated. "Scissors cut dynamite. Dynamite blows up rock."

He said again, "Paper doesn't kill rock. Nothing kills rock." Then I realized he'd thought he'd found the surest way to beat all of his friends in a game of chance. I had to tell him, "Son, if nothing kills rock then everyone would use it all the time."

My sphere of influence seems small, but I like to think Seth's got something new and cool to introduce on the playground. By this time next year, children as far as Detroit will be using dynamite to blow up rock.

Q: What goes "Moooooz?
A: A jet flying backwards

Q: What do you call a sleeping bull?
A: A bulldozer

Q: "Doctor! Doctor! My boy has swallowed a roll of film!" What does the doctor say?
A: "Let's just hope he doesn't develop!"

Q: What state has a friendly greeting for everyone?
A: Ohio

and my favorite for today........

Q: What did the traffic light say to the driver?
A: "Don't look! I'm changing!"

American Girl dolls are all the rage in our area. Although they're expensive, they are the wholesome antithesis of Barbie, correctly proportioned, fully clothed, and age appropriate. Every doll comes with a back story. Julie is from San Francisco in the 70's. Kit grew up in the Great Depression to become a journalist. All of that appeals to the story tellers in both me and Savannah.

I refused to buy her one a year ago, so she saved her birthday/Christmas/grandma money to buy one herself. (In the last year, she has also bought Ruthie.) She has saved for a few of the accessories also. But when our neighbor invited Savannah to her American Girl sleepover birthday party, I was happy to buy pink polka dot pajamas, for her and the doll! Wondering about the precedent I was setting, the girl in me was tickled for her. It would be here in plenty of time for the sleepover.

She wore the pjs for three nights before she got a black stain on the bodice, actually that's not bad on a kid's timeline. It didn't come out in the wash. The dry cleaners could have it ready on the day of the sleepover! We went together to pick them up, only to find the one button had broken in the cleaning process and two had fallen off! The cleaner's supplied six new buttons. I'd have to replace them, and this couldn't have happened on a busier Saturday! I noticed the new buttons were shaped slightly different than the three remaining but figured Savannah wouldn't notice. On the way back to the car, she said "You are gonna replace them all, right?" I asked why? She said, "Because the new buttons are different." It was more work for me, but I was happy she noticed.

While we were out, she remembered that she'd never gotten the birthday magazine I'd promised from Safeway. And there was Safeway right next to the cleaners. On our detour she held up a girl's magazine, with girls on the cover just a bit older. (I remember always aspiring to be the girls two and three years older than I was.) I scanned the headlines for dating and kissing, but it had phrases like "Cliques, good or bad?" and How to have the best sleepover ever.... I approved it. Then Spongebob caught her eye. I watched her looking between a girl/growing up magazine and a funny cartoon. Hmm, growing up or staying young. I made it clear it was her choice but asked which magazine would she get the most use out of. She chose Spongebob. When I asked why, she said, "Because it has comics." :-) Even my mother loves Spongebob.

Savannah knows she's pretty. It's nothing she's said out loud. But I can see it in the way she presents herself. This school year she's been brushing her teeth and hair every morning without being told. She just started wearing perfume. Although Daddy and I had to teach her how little she really needs.

I've told her she looks pretty, which is not quite the same as saying "You're pretty." It's a hard thing for me to say to her. I need to be level headed for her, not too vain. I've found it easier to tell Arwen she's adorable, but at 4 1/2 she is still hanging on to her babyhood with her round face and dimpled knuckles. In the long run, I don't think it's best for either of them to hear it too much.

I'm looking for the balance on that fine line of passing on confidence or vanity. I was raised with a "Pretty is as pretty does" mentality. And her example of pretty comes from my behavior more than my words, no? I was never told I was pretty. The single mother who raised me, the woman who cut bad sycamore limbs with a chain saw, chopped fire wood and poisoned wasp nests even though she was near hysterically afraid of them, well, she wanted me to go into science. She liked hearing me play Fur Elise or Floyd Cramer's Last Date on the piano. You can't put looks in a cash register, my dad liked to say. Their generation, and mine too I think, didn't have the audience that this new one has. Pretty was something we were just supposed to know, our ranking in the world's gauge of who's handsome and who's not.

What if I'd had a mother who tried building my confidence with compliments? Would I have been more assertive in junior high? happier? What if it had gone to my head? What if it had ruined me?

Now I'm a fairly secure person. I like my green eyes and ski-slope nose and I've even grown to like my natural hair color. But when I hear someone say that so and so (insert celebrity name here) is beautiful, my next, most natural thought is, "What do you think of me?" With a beauty compliment dropped, there is an invisible notion left hanging, the notion of ugliness. So I find it no easier in saying "She's beautiful." than "She's ugly." However, if we're going to hear we're beautiful, it should be from someone who knows us.

I'm still figuring out the gender difference, but I've had no problem telling Seth he's handsome.

"Gimme a rest!" comes from Give it a rest and Gimme a break.

And for some reason he says, "Kill me I must be dreaming!" instead of "pinch me."

Just like his Daddy has done for a long time, Seth just started using his vocal chords to yawn. Kids have all kinds of quirks that come out in different phases, talking loudly while breathing in; that's a lovely one, especially right in your ear. Yawning with a voiceover isn't so bad. Even when he (1) does it in public. There are far more disruptive things a five year old boy could do.

I don't imagine Seth ever had a moment where he thought, "Hey, I like the noise Daddy makes when he yawns. I'll start that." But it's at this age that boys have really begun to identify with their fathers. (The process of pulling away from the mother can start at about 18 months.) I think even this goofy, subconscious adopting of a trait seals the deal. We are destined to become our same sex parent, no?

Naturally, there are little troubles and stress (2) that you learn to let go of with each child. It may be the best reason to have three children. As Daddy has yawned loudly through our years together, I've learned to transpose annoyances into amusements. And there is the secret to a happy marriage!

~
1) Seth, not Daddy
2) As little as they are, they step on my feet and I still holler "Feeet."

I have found a pattern in my party planning. When I'm shopping for my children at their birthdays or December, I'm conservative in my buying. Savannah always gets one or two things on her list, which is always 5 times that long. When she shows me her list and talks about it, I can see two things; one, she knows she won't get everything on the list, and two, this year there were subtleties in her approach. She's conscious of appearing greedy.

I love that. I want to reach out and hug her for it. She's thoughtful of her place in the world, and I'm happy to see that so far she has not fallen for the notion of entitlement that so many children of this generation and in our location on the map seem to have fallen for.

It must mean I'm correct in my conservative shopping. But then I wrap the gifts. It's almost always the night before the friends come for games and cake, and every time I panic a little. I'm sad that I didn't give her just one or two more things on her list. Then I wonder if I'll have time to pick up High School Musical 2 or one of those American Girl movies tomorrow before the party. (I won't.)

Her main present is an American Girl accessory. (She owns two American Girl dolls which she paid for herself with allowance and birthday/grandma money.) Before wrapping the box, I saw the catalogue in it. I've thrown several away before she ever even saw them. I know, aren't I cruel? ;-) But some I give to her. Tonight, the catalogue reminded me how I felt when I was young and looked at wish books. I knew I couldn't have _any_thing in them. That doesn't bother me now, seeing things I can't have, but it was very sad when I was young. I hope it's not like that for her. I don't think it is. I believe she has more ambition than I did, more knowledge than I had that she can work toward something.

On her card I drew a picture of nine individual candles, some with little polka dots, some with big, some with stripes, one a flower collar and the last, the ninth, large wings and a smile on the flame. The front of the card quotes Helen Keller. "Life is either a daring adventure, or it is nothing at all."

Yesterday I rolled Arwen's window down so she could say goodbye to a little friend, and her purple balloon got sucked out the window! If you've ever witnessed this, it is a true heartbreak for a child. Their tears are genuine.

Trying to put a good spin on her tragedy I said, "But he's free now! He got his freedom!"

I expected more tears, but she said, "You mean she."

She climbed into bed with us this morning, as she does every morning, and we oohed and aahed about her being 4! But she says, "But I'm not big." I know what she means. She's been babied. She is the baby, and she still looks like a baby. Her face is still round; her hands are still dimpled. Arwen is a peanut. All the strangers at Trader Joe's seem surprised when she tells them she's turning 4, not 3.

Highlights: chocolate muffins, a tea party board game and cheeseburgers with her family. The big party with all her little girlfriends is still 10 days away.

I Savannah declare:

- Stay up later
- Have a raise in my allowence
- Have the computer in my room
- More sleepovers and playdates
- Science stuff
- Science posters

Sighnd,
Savannah (in very curly cursive)

Arwen and I were kickin' back on the couch - all the delicious fruit from the farmer's market settling in our bellies. She said, "Mama, you sooo brave."

Mom - "Really? How am I brave?"

Arwen - "You feed us."

End of the year, 2nd grade, Savannah comes home asking, "What's the F word?" I refused to tell her. She'll not hear it from me.

I'm actually surprised that she got this far into her eighth year without hearing this word before. And it's not that I mind saying it to her, but after hearing the word, I know her next question. "What's that mean?", and I haven't yet tailored a good answer for a 7 year old.