Bill Watterson on Selling out

Bill Watterson, an artist who wouldn't merchandise his work despite heavy pressure and substantial enticements, and fought hard for having a real life:

"Selling out is usually more a matter of buying in. Sell out, and you're really buying into someone else's system of values, rules and rewards. The so-called "opportunity" I faced would have meant giving up my individual voice for that of a money-grubbing corporation. It would have meant my purpose in writing was to sell things, not say things. My pride in craft would be sacrificed to the efficiency of mass production and the work of assistants. Authorship would become committee decision. Creativity would become work for pay. Art would turn into commerce. In short, money was supposed to supply all the meaning I'd need. What the syndicate wanted to do, in other words, was turn my comic strip into everything calculated, empty and robotic that I hated about my old job. They would turn my characters into television hucksters and T-shirt sloganeers and deprive me of characters that actually expressed my own thoughts."

The above, quoted by Nevin Martell in his unauthorized biography of Bill Watterson, Looking for Calvin and Hobbes. I almost included two paragraphs of rather pointed analysis of said book but Upon Reflection, I'm not sure those thoughts are worth airing. I'll just say, "Hear, hear!" to Watterson's words.

Learning to Read

I've loved Leila's recent posts on learning to read. Never taught anyone to read before, but Gibbie and Ezra are on the cusp! I learned to read in first grade. I remember longing to read around five years of age, but it didn't then occur to me I could learn before they taught us in school. Maybe I wasn't ready to any earlier. By second grade I was reading chapter books late into the night.
What we're doing: reading out loud, lots and lots and lots. Picture books, poetry, comic books, favorite novels. This is seriously my favorite pastime. I basically married Paul because he would read books out loud with me. Gibbie won a little prize at his school last year among kids his age for reading the most hours during a reading fundraiser. The tricky thing was remembering to write it down. Our family chapter book really put us over the top because it means we read in the car and while doing dishes and other otherwise unliterary moments.

We are going through some popular phonics-early readers, but mostly the kids seem to respond best to tailored instruction. For instance, I've noticed that Ezra breaks words down into sounds orally, but has trouble sounding out written words, and is sounding out and writing his own phonetic words in a way Gibbie never did. Gibbie, when we work on reading, always wants to write out the words we sound out on his slate or in his notebook. We did get them each a special notebook and pen, just theirs, in which they do plenty of practicing and playing around.

I would like to read Uncovering the Logic of English by Denise Eide because her premise makes so much sense to me; that English is phonetic if you really learn the actual rules of phonics. (I think; I haven't read this yet!) This makes so much beautiful sense to me.

These boys are both writing lots of letters everyday, and have many of the building blocks of reading in hand. They seem to be synthesizing those elements into bona fide reading in different ways. All very exciting, and we're just not going to push it, or worry about comparing them to any brilliant friends of ours who all were fluently reading years earlier than us, all right?

"I have some cake here," said Mma Potokwane, reaching for the bag she had placed at her feet. "I thought that you might like a piece."
She opened the bag and took out a large parcel of cake, carefully wrapped in grease-proof paper. Mma Ramotswe watched intently as her visitor sliced the slab into two generous portions and laid them on the table, two pieces of paper acting as plates.
"That's very kind of you, Mma," said Mma Ramotswe, "But I think that I'm going to have to say no thank you. You see, I am on a diet now."
It was said without conviction, and her words faded away at the end of the sentence. But Mma Potokwane had heard, and looked up sharply, "Mma Ramotswe!" she exclaimed. "if you go on a diet, then what are the rest of us to do? What will all the other traditionally built ladies think if they hear about this? How can you be so unkind?"
"Unkind?" asked Mma Ramotswe. "I do not see how this is unkind."
"But it is," protested Mma Polokwane. Traditionally built people are always being told by other people to eat less. Their lives are often a misery. You are a well-known traditionally built person. If you go on a diet, then everybody else will feel guilty. They will feel that they have to go on a diet too, and that ill spoil their lives."
Mma Polokwane pushed one of the pieces of cake over to Mma Ramotswe. "You must take this, Mma," she said. "I shall be eating my piece. I am traditionally built too, and we traditionally built people must stick together. We really must."
Mma Potokwane picked up her piece of cake and took a large bite out of it. "it is very good, Mma," she mumbled though a mouth full of fruit cake. "It is very good cake."
For a moment Mma Ramotswe was undecided. Do I really want to change the way I am? She asked herself. Or should I just be myself, which is a traditionally build tady who likes bush tea and who likes to sit on her verandah and think?
She sighed. There were many good intentions which would never be seen to their implementation. This, she decided, was one of them.
"I think my diet is over now," she said to Mma Potokwane.
They sat there for some time, talking in the way of old friends, licking the crumbs of cake off their fingers. Mma Ramotswe told Mma Potokwante about her stressful week, and Mma Potokwane sympathised with her. "You must take more care of yourself," she said. "We are not born to work, work, work all the time."
"You're right," said Mma Ramotswe. "It is important just to be able to sit and think."
Mma Potokwane agreed with that. "I often tell the orphans not to spend all their time working," she said. "It is quite unnatural to work like that. There should be some time for work and some for play."
"And some for sitting and watching the sun go up and down," said Mma Ramotswe. "And some time for listening to the cattle bells in the bush."
-from Blue Shoes and Happiness, by Alexander McCall Smith

Mmm...library pleasures

I love coming home from the library with a stack of lovely books. It's like having a box of chocolates and knowing I'll get to savor each one slowly over the next week, tasting the various delights inside. Yum!

Coffee Shop Story Time

Here we are with some favorite coffee-shop family activities. We keep needing to remind ourselves that the goal of parenting is not to find something to entertain the children so that we can ignore them and do our own thing. We usually have more fun when we are all present together. This does not exclude adult conversation and down times! It just means we don't exclude the needs of the children when we plan our day, and we shift internally to enjoying one another each as we are today. (i.e., posh location, exquisite drinks, grown-up books and kid books) Oh, and we have some fun.First, we are doing a little free pen and ink drawing with supplies from Libby's little art-on-the-go kit. (like this Chinese set, a gift or this homemade one.) This takes no planning. Even Ezra can do this.Small amount of planning: bringing a few choice reads. Lately we've been way into Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Blueberries for Sal, and Henry and Mudge and the Forever Sea.I truly love reading aloud, and both kids are engaging so deeply with the stories.I love this last picture because we're all doing the same thing with our faces.

Hello from April 3rd!

Now, it's April 8th as I write, but April 3rd is my birthday, and as I've been needing a bit of a break from the computer, and also been under the weather, I didn't get around to posting that day, or much at all recently.
April 3rd, I woke up with a sore throat, which has progressed through other symptoms, but not yet disappeared. Gibbie's had it too, so much so that we stayed home from church, and have spent days and days now doing not much other than sitting on the couch, cuddling and holding and reading. Poor Ezra; We've been a boring lot.
I had a very happy birthday anyway. I visited a friend in the morning, one of my favorite things and favorite people. I hadn't advertised the occasion of my birth this year, (other than agonized pre-processing, reconciling my party-dreams with the week's capacity, thanks Wendy!) so I surprised Christy. When she found out, she insisted on giving me a lovely kid's cookbook that I'm so excited about. Then we ate fresh brownies from my favorite recipe.
Coming home, I was tired and sore-throated and about to wilt but dear Wendy had send flowers and a gift! Then I noticed how beautiful the day and, as Ezra was asleep in the car, I set up a little basket bed for him in the corner of the yard so we could stay outside. Then I set up our recently rediscovered hammock in the yard, and Paul came home with a bursting bouquet of flowers also! So I read in that hammock, which I have so long anticipated reading in, while Paul played with the kids. Mom and Dad brought dinner over, which was lovely and a god-send as well, as what with one thing and another this week, we kept doing and doing the dishes, and lo-they never get done! So that was just great to have dinner, and company, and help watching the kids so I could clean the kitchen. (they offered to clean up, but sometimes, it's more of a relief to work than entertain.)
Natalie gave me the most wonderful handmade bag, and there was another handmade gift from my mother (pictures maybe later) and luxe shampoo and conditioner that I love but am too cheap to buy for myself!

My sister is taking Paul and I to Sense and Sensibility, which Cromulent Shakespeare is putting on at the beloved Black Forest Inn, later in April. Hence, Paul and I have abandoned Tess of the D'Ubervilles. We didn't need much of an excuse to leave poor Tess, we're sorry dear girl, for Austin's Elinor and Marianne, to get it all read in time for the show. After that, we just may tackle something great--dare I say it? I've been thirsting for poetry and beauty, and content, and building up in truth. We have a nicely annotated, but not ponderously heavy copy of Paradise Lost on the shelf. Ahh, Milton, I do hope we are up to loving you! More than a year ago, a friend of ours, of the professorly type, strongly recommended we read Paradise Regained. He said that everyone reads Paradise Lost and stops there, and cried it was a pity as the whole reason to read Paradise Lost is to get to Paradise Regained. Kind of like life itself, so there you have it. Milton's stated aim in the first volume being to "justify the ways of God to men," in heroic couplets built as up into a palace of verse, beautiful and true, well, I just don't think we can resist. Any one want to join us?

Back to the birthday. I was also amazed with phone calls from far-away and much-loved friends; one from the Eastern Hemisphere, and one in the Southern. What gifts, friends who care so well!
What's more, who remember one's birthday! I myself am pretty rotten at remembering birthdays, and so am especially grateful to friends who remember mine and friends who tell everyone it is their birthday in case they don't remember. Hmmm... maybe I'll start doing that! Still enjoying my flowers, tulips and daisies--what a lucky one I am!

Book Review: At Large, and At Small

Hey, all. We're still here. I happened to need a break from the computer during Holy Week, and as you may imagine, said week before Easter, with an event at our church every night of the week, is a busy time for a church musician. On to some recent literary musings!
Anne Fadiman has become one of my favorite authors. You know, the kind whose book you read just because they wrote it. I read these two little volumes with sheer delight. In her newer book, At Large and at Small; Familiar Essays by Anne Fadiman , she writes a tidy little piece on the familiar essay itself, listing her favorite masters of the genre.
The man she missed, in my book, is G. K. Chesterton. (as an aside, the St. Paul Public library has a great collection of his out of print work; help me keep it in circulation!) He wrote a few interesting greater works; The Everlasting Man, The Man Who Was Thursday, and, most delightfully, the Innocence and Scandal of Father Brown, respectively; but a lot of his leavings are inhibitively dated. I hate to say it, being a fan of the archaic, but it's true. He does also have many volumes of familiar essays. I think they were originally written for newspaper columns or the like? Lovely little musings on diverse themes such as, "On Losing One's Hat," "On Cheeses," "On the Contents of My Pockets." Make me want to saunter into a nearby pub and shoot the breeze with such a chum as he.

Anne Fadiman's essays differ from Chesterton's in style; they are heavily researched and quite denser, but retain the cheerful, serious, and contemplative solidity that I love in this genre. I heartily recommend them.

Thrifty homemaking in The Tale of Two Cities

I used to just be a plain, dorky kind of nerd. Bookish, opinionated, rumpled. I liked to think that I became a alternative, articulate, intentional kind of nerd. Now I am additionally a homemaker. I have mixed feelings about being this. Homemaking may not help my image. I associate the word with frumpiness, doting, and provinciality. But there is also a wonderful alchemy in homemaking.
May I share some unexpected gems from one of our recent reads, Dicken's The Tale of Two Cities?
On the enigmatic Miss Pross, that vociferously loyal maid of our main characters: "From these decayed sons and daughters of Gaul [her forebearers], she had acquired such wonderful arts, that the woman and girl who formed the staff of domestics regarded her as quite a Sorceress, or Cinderella's Godmother; who would send out for a fowl, a rabbit, a vegetable or two from the garden, and change them into anything she pleased."

On Lucie, the good one: "Nor, how the lightest echo of their united home, directed by herself with such a wise and elegant thrift that it was more abundant than any waste, was music to her."

Little Dreams and Supercool Bikes

Can I share some little dreams with you? I am dreaming of:
-going out on the porch to wake up in the mornings when it's warm enough!
-reading with the kids in a hammock
-finally building my dream compost bin: a 2- or 3-bin system with front panels that slide out, in the backyard
-finding some way for myself to bike around town safely with both the kids!
-growing more herbs and flowers in the garden this year
-canning and drying more wild, garden, and farmer's market foods, so we can head into next winter with a beautiful, well-stocked pantry!

So, lets talk about the biking dream a bit more. Warning! None of the pictures in this post are our own. I snagged them off of the websites of people who sell alternative bikes, and will try to give credit for each one. I hope they don't mind as they all look like great companies.
My goal is to be able to bike with the kids. We rejected the bike trailer pretty early in our search. They seem to be the preferred method of cycling with children, but they are heavy and kids are behind me and out of view. I think I would still go for the trailer except that our biking is primarily on city streets, and there are busy ones all around us. To cross a big, fast, four-lane road on a bike, bikers often stop on the median but this wouldn't be practical with a big trailer hanging off your back end. To cross at a light, I would either need to ride alone the busy road for at least a block, right in the middle of traffic, or go on the sidewalk. The sidewalks are rightfully full of pedestrians here in the hood, and I just don't feel good about biking in a traffic lane with my precious children behind me.
That brings us to child seats that can be mounted right on the bike. A great option for one kid. Maybe even two. There are front-mounted child seats that go either in front of or just behind the handle bars. They are popular in other countries, where family biking is more common. Bobike has a child seat that goes in front of the adult, but looks like it wouldn't interfere with pedalling. There are some other nice ones out there as well. But with one of these in front as well as a seat in back might make a lot of extra weight up at the top of the bike. It might work great--check out the sturdy-looking setup I found onthis blog, which showed this picture by Bala Nallama of a mother with three kids on her bike! I love the way those Scandanavians make everything look so easy. It also makes me wonder if a bike designed for extra riders wouldn't be more stable than a conventional American bike with after-market seats. Even better would be a setup with the child lower to give a more stable center of gravity. I would also like a place to put our backpack or whatnot. We always need our water bottles and diapers other sundries when we are out and about.
Well, leave it to those wonderful bikers and designers, Scandanavians, to have figured this all out long ago. I found plenty of Dutch and Danish manufacturers of cargo bicycles called Bakfiet as well as cargo tricycles!
This fancy version of the bakfiet is pictured on the
CargoCycle site, which is a good resource for all kinds of things related to alternative biking.
It was also atCargocycle that I discovered the Christiania.
As far as I can tell, and this is all new to me, the Christiania is the essence a cargo trike, and were designed to carry all kinds of things, and people, around the town after which they are named, where cars are not allowed. Both of these designs seem to fit all my saftey requirements, plus room for gear.
One company imports the classic Dutch bakfiet, and their website displays this picture of Princess Marilene biking with her two small children. Isn't that just lovely? At their site, I also found a video describing how bicycles can be used by ordinary families as transport for people or large cargo. I particularly appreciated their explanation that in many countries, regular families travel this way and it is completely accepted as a safe mode of transport, even safer than cars, whereas here in the states it is still really a fringe thing. I realize that it may be safer there because of the way roads are designed and bikes are respected. Hopefully we too can learn.
I feel like we're getting close to a workable solution; low center of gravity, secure places for children, children ride in front of the adult, small bicycle road footprint. And, imported from Europe, quite expensive!

On the other end of the spectrum,
WorldBike , whose slogan is "Bikes that Haul, for All," has programs for open-source bike designs to meet the practical needs of the world's poor. They have plans for bikes that carry stunning loads of cargo, and instructions to make them quite simply. While I do want to explore this site more, I didn't see plans for anything like the bakfiet or a front-loading cargo tricycle like the Christiania. I think the kids in the picture are just sitting on the cargo rack of an extracycle extension. Somehow I don't think this particular plan would work along University Avenue. All the same, WorldBike looks like a really neat organization doing exciting work.

Back to my Quest.

Looking for a company that makes a bakfiet or front-loading cargo tricycle domestically.
This company makes a sturdy cargo tricycle that looks good. I found a few start-ups trying to make something like the bakfiet, only better. (Isn't that just the American way? Trying to improve on what we haven't yet mastered?) These efforts didn't seem to be off the ground yet anyway.
I also discovered found a company in Eugine, OR, that makes this! Check out HumanPoweredMachines
Looks like the Bakfiet, no? Pretty exciting stuff. A girl can dream, can't she?

All Around the Year in Picture Books

We love books that show the full circle of a year, with it's changing seasons and steady traditions. Here are a few of our favorites:
A Time to Keep by Tasha Tudor. Most requested by Gibbie. Lots of darling ideas for fun things to try. He most loves all the dress-up costumes and pretend play. (have you noticed this theme with him?) Intricate pictures are delightful time and again.

Oxcart Man Colonial-style paintings on wood. Shows the year of an almost entirely self-sufficient farming family. Lovely text. Spare and beautiful. Our copy is loved to death, and awaiting attention on the repair shelf.

A Child's Calendar By John Updike, illustrations by Trina Schart Hyman. One of my favorite illustrators, ever. Lovely rhymed, metered text. Pictures a modern family through a New-Englandy year. I like the poetry of real lives: "the radiator purrs all day."

Book Review: North Country Spring

North Country Spring by Reeve Lindbergh, illustrated by Liz Sivertson is one of my favorite spring time picture books.
The text is lyrical, rhythmic verse in the vocative, calling each kind of animal to come out for spring. My favorite stanza, and a good example of the singing voice of this poem, reads,

Strut out, tall moose, from your stand of spruce.
Walk around, feel the ground, let your bones get loose.

Have you seen a moose? Have you seen a gangly young bull after a long winter? She really uses the cadence of her verse to describe the specific gait of each animal. Compare the above lines with the following:

Lope out, wild wolves, come out and prowl.
It's a fine shiny night for a yip and a howl.

This combined with the painting of wolves, under a large moon, with long shadows on the yet-snowy ground, gives such an impression of the pace and gait of a pack of wolves. I love the way the sounds of the words used to describe the wolves are so wolfish themselves. A wolf wouldn't be a wolf without both doggy yips and detours in his path; and that wild, sustained lunar chorus.
The pictures fall right in line with this.; lush, pastiche-y and expressive paintings. They show just enough detail to paint a personality--the tumlbey-ness of bear cubs, the cupped form of fluffed up chickadees on a branch. These images are every bit as lyrical as the text.
I would like to emphasize that picture books are not only for children. Long before mine came along, I haunted the children's section of the bookstore. As an adult, a reader, and an artist I built my fine picture library book by book out of admiration for the fine work coming out of this genre. There is a lot of twaddle in kids' books, but discarding that, the best of writing and illustrating for children is of the highest quality. I wonder if this may not be because children read for the sheer joy of it, so those who write and illustrate best for them have not the pretensions that drag down much adult literature. Paul and I often still use children's non-fiction as a starting point for research, when we need an overview of a new topic. I often read young adult novels and children's stories for my own pleasure reading.
At the sustainable neighborhoods conference, I attended a most excellent workshop on community gardening with youth and one important point I absorbed was that our children need a sense of place. This articulates for me why we keep reading books that sing of our seasons, our plants, our woods and waters and animals, here in Minnesota. Ruth, a founder of my beloved Swede Hollow Cafe's wonderful community children's garden talked about how we must teach our children to read the land here, to know it's story and understand its ways. She said she has found in her work with Twin Cities children that they may know something about the rainforest, but almost never know anything about our own mighty Mississippi.
We're reading it as a clarion call to spring--come, come, wherever you are! Come out from the corners, come out of your lair!

Francis' Papa Makes Coffee or the Winter Picnic

So. We're still mid-winter. Off-and-on colds and viruses ranging around like lions, seeking whom they may devour. Dry air. Not much outdoor time. Oh, we try! We bundle up, we go for walks (oh, foolish mortals that we are!). I try to leave an extra ten minutes going somewhere for Gibbie to play in the snow once he's all bundled up.
I have never longed for spring so devotedly. Once we can play outside for more than twenty minutes at a time, not dancing with the danger of frostbite, nay--in no more than boots and a jacket--oh, will we play long and hard outside!
Anyway, with, optimistically two months of the off-again-on-again romance between Winter and that seductress Spring, how will we survive without eating eachother's heads?
Books!
Gibbie calls, "Mama, I'm dressing up as Francis! Do you want to dress up as Francis' mama? sweetly) This book you haven't read. It's called, Francis' Papa Makes Coffee."
What, you haven't heard of Francis' Papa makes Coffee? What about Francis Goes to the Zoo?
I've mentioned our beloved Francis books before. It's hard to remember that Francis isn't an actual member of our family. She's a badger, actually. A fictional one. Our favorite Francis books include: Bread and Jam for Francis, Bedtime for Francis, A Baby Sister for Francis, and A Bargain for Francis. Wait! That's almost all of them. Yup. We sure do love our Francis.

They are invaluable for reading again and again and again. Well written, clever, well-timed little stories. But you won't find Francis' Papa Makes Coffee or Francis Goes to the Zoo at the library, as they're Gibbie's own creation.
Gibbie has begun a sort of literary vamping. He makes up stories based on his favorite books.
Gibbie "dresses up as Francis." This often doesn't include any tangible costume at all. He mentally puts on Francis, and tells us about it. He also informs us if we are required to dress up as anyone. Francis' Papa, say, or any other real or fictional person we know and love. Sometimes he "dresses up" Ezra as Gloria, Francis' little sister. True fans of Francis will appreciate that sometimes Albert, Ida, the ubiquitous Thelma, and even Harold occaisionally show up too.
Francis Goes to the Zoo, the most popular title around our house today, underwent some major plot development today. It goes something like this: Gibbie and Ezra get into the "Adventure Box" (they made up that name--I swear! It is, of course, just a big cardboard box.) They usually also toss in some blankets or cloths and stuffed animals. Then follow endless invitations to Mama and Papa, who morph into Francis at Gibbie's will, (yes, he changes characters faster than Superman) to come and look at the animals. They are enticed to pick up and admire the animals (note that to adult eyes, the animals are Gibbie and Ezra). Apparently, when Francis goes to the zoo, she can pick up whatever real animals she wants. Today, amazingly, she got to handle :
-a real live, "puffed-up ball animal" who stared round and round,
-as well as a fluffy animal that was very very soft,
-a baby polar bear,
-and two quite wild and rousty animals who couldn't agree on who got a certain corner of their exhibit and whether that animal would be lying down or sitting.

That's the game: pretending to look at and touch and hold animals in a zoo (now we all know what Gibbie's dream zoo would look like) or pretending to be a friendly zoo animal just dying to be picked up and petted by a locquacious and rhyming little badger.

I like to do my own motherly version of literary vamping. It is so easy to take any good picture book and pick out some part of it that we can play out or learn more about, often with little or no preparation. This forms the basis of my winter-anti-boredom-toolkit.
These pictures are actually from more than a month ago. In Best Friends for Francis, and actual favorite Russell and Lillian Hoban story, Francis and company go out for the most delightful picnic outing. This has been the seed for countless such outings of our own. Elements from the story that we like to include: a picnic hamper blanket, a wide variety of food, and spontaneously composed songs. We were out for a walk near some small woods on a relatively balmy winter day, and decided to eat our packed lunch, outing style. This really wasn't fancy at all, just a thermos of warm milk, peanut butter sandwiches, oranges, and a blanket; but it was so delightful. Paul was right there with us, but as usual, sigh, is not pictured as he was behind the camera. It also really wasn't uncomfortably cold! We were dressed quite warmly in many layers of wool, warmed by our hike, and had our lovely outing blanket to sit upon. On a winter's day in the twenties, (Farenheit; cold enough to be comfortable but not wet) I highly reccomend it!


So does Ezra!

Onto something Big!

"Mama! Mama! They're the same!" He called.
"What? What are the same?" I came into the room where he was holding this little board book, Numbers by Candlewick Press. We picked it up at the library for the animal pictures Ezra was so into last week.
"They're the same as my book. My alphabet book."
Gibbie was excited. He couldn't believe it. He pointed to the letters, turned sideways and
running down the side of the cover.
Yup. I tried to be nonchalant. These are the letters that make up all the words in the books we read.
I opened the Red Letter Alphabet Book and we found each of the lower case letters in the title of Numbers in our cherished Alphabet Book.
I don't normally like Alphabet books much. They are not generally fun to read. We like stories and poems better. But this book is special. The letters are lowercase, like most of the letters we read in stories. The letters are flocked and printed very large, enticing us to run our fingers over them, tracing the path each one makes. The example words use the phonetic sounds of the letters, which only makes sense, but, maddeningly lots of alphabet books don't do.
This was a spontaneous, Eureka! moment for Gibbie--a milestone on his path to literacy. I hope I can share his enthusiasm in these moments without getting all boringly didactic on him. Without being so excited that I take over and make it my moment to teach, dulling the simple sincere pleasure of discovery.
We have these alphabet and number books and a few others that we read when requested, but I don't think that at one and two and three years we need to go out of our way to teach this. Our enthusiasm can detract from the pleasing puzzle that is reading. Kind of like how once when my sister asked Paul and I for our opinion on something. After we stopped talking twenty minutes later she said, "Wow. Next time I want a long lecture on something, I'll ask you guys."
As Gibbie nears the boundaries of school-agedness, I'm really chewing on some different educational philosophies. I read Grace Llewellyn's The Teenage Liberation Handbook in college and it changed my life. I took fully took the reins of my own education for the first time, and it was great! Since leaving educational institutions, I find I'm blossoming. Reading more than ever. Thinking hard, doing, processing with more depth than I did in school.
But I do wonder if I could do so if it weren't for all the time I spent in schools? If it weren't for this broad base of formal classes, all my gifted and talented, international baccalaureate, liberal arts, bachelor of arts hocus pocus. The question is somewhat moot as my time in formal classrooms is largely over anyway, but it's not moot for these kids. The big idea in the Liberation Handbook is that real learning happens best in real life. I don't know that we're going to become head-over-heels unschoolers, but it is promising to see how spontaneously and joyfully Gibbie discovers the world. How he makes this intellectual leap that is often laborious when taught from the top down.

I don't give his little self enough credit. Thank God that we can live a life that is so richly, luxuriantly full of books. It needn't surprise me that if he is as surrounded by the written word as much as the spoken word, he just might come to decode it almost as naturally.
Anyhow, I love these Montessori number and letter books. They are really beautiful in this plain, spare way. The Blue Number Counting Book is my favorite. I just can't resist touching each little shape on every page as I count it. Nothing could be more natural.

He's a Kid

Recently, we turned Ezra's car seat around. Little babies' car seats face the rear of the vehicle. When they get to a certain size, you've got to turn them around. Because of this and many other reasons, Gibbie has ruled that his brother is no longer a baby. We may not refer to him as such. "But he's not a baby; he's a kid," he explains.This is a long-awaited development. It was a moment of joy when Gibbie realized for the first time that Ezra wouldn't always be a baby, but was growing into a child, just like him. We had a lot of "is Evra a kid, yet?" conversations. Gibbie has decided that the wait is over.

Our dear Ever is turning out to be a book hound just like the rest of his family. Just as we are finally R-T-G (ready to go!) I turn and see little Ezra, booted, hatted, and mittened, with a small volume clutched between his mitts. He likes all kinds of books, and has a rotating stock of favorites. He so adores our Puff the Magic Dragon ("rah-rah, guh. dah"), a Christmas gift from Grammers, that he reaches up towards the high shelf where we keep it to prevent it's being torn again. He tries to climb the shelf, and croons along with the song when we finally read it.
Ezra is on the cusp of speech. The explosion is coming. He has many words, which he uses infrequently and which only those well acquainted with him can interpret. He toddles around the corner in search of Papa, book in hand, saying, "Reee, booh." If Papa doesn't respond quickly, he takes Paul's hand and gently places the book into it. Books are already his diversion, his joy, his succour and refreshment. We're just going to have so much fun here.

Bank the Fire on the Hearth

Deep winter is here. Everyone I know is stir crazy. We slip off the crusty snowbanks trying to load the children into the car. We play dragons in the car, exhaling puffs of steam. Mostly, we stay home.

And I can't find our copy of The Tomten. What's a Tomten, you ask? Well, if you live here and don't know, or if you have a heart for the people of cold lands, you just have to read The Tomten, by Astrid Lindgren. I can't lend you my copy, with the ragged spine and the sticker of a happy skunk smelling a flower, that I stuck on the inside cover when I was little, because I can't find it. What's more, I now always have my library hold list maxed out. Did you know you can only order ten books at a time? It used to be twenty-five. Apparently only a miniscule portion of library patrons would ever have ten books on hold at once, and the Library Authorities felt that meant those loyal patrons should for some reason curb their biblio-enthusiasm. The reasons for the change in policy have not been explained. Don't ask me how I know these things. Sigh.

Anyway, it goes, from memory, something like this:
It is the dead of winter on the old farm. On nights like these, people creep into their houses and bank the fire on the hearth.
The paintings in this book capture many lovely things about winter, not least dreaming of summer.
The Tomten trips about between the buildings on small silent feet. He talks to us in Tomten language, a silent little language a child can understand.

Winters come and winters go
Summers come and summers go
Soon the swallows will be here again.

Hibernating

We've been doing this a lot lately. Sitting on the couch, reading. It's cold outside. We're nice and cozy inside. We have so many good books. Ahh, yes, and such hefty library fines. (shh... don't tell Paul!)
I was just reading in Mother Earth News about bears hibernating: they don't eat all winter long! Sometimes they amble out of their den on warm days, even wake up briefly to give birth, but they just go right back to sleeping! Their heart slows way down, even to only ten beats a minute. Their body temperature drops. Super chill. They just rest.
Ezra's catching the reading bug too. I think I read him Piggies and The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round, his current favorites, a dozen times each today. He cries if I can't read him his request immediately!
Often we read on the couch, of course, but I also find myself reading sitting on the floor, in the bathroom, at the kitchen table, in restaurants. There's also reading when we don't have the desired book with us: from memory. Yup, there are quite a few titles that both parents and child can recite word for word.
Now, we will be reading lots more on our big family bed. Yesterday, I would have said little family bed, but our friend Liz donated (almost; a long-term loan until she returns to us from South America) a comfortably amazingly wonderful big beautiful queen bed to the nonprofit fund for the Relief and Comfort of the Entire Bear Family and all their Backs.
Speaking of hibernating, catch you later.

presents, expectations, and elves

Recently a friend said that she had always noticed that in my family as I was growing, we gave gifts that she thought would have seemed... insufficient? ...unacceptable? to other kids. I was surprised, (and don't be offended, mom; I don't think she meant it in a negative way at all.) because I think we are the best givers ever!

I don't know how many gifts the typical American kid gets at Christmas, and really, I don't care. As a kid, I never felt shortchanged at Christmas. To me, it always seemed like we all had a wonderful wealth of presents.
Talking with other parents of young kids lately, all just figuring out how our families will do holidays for ourselves, I've found that my extended family may be somewhat uncommon for Americans in that we:
-make a lot of gifts by hand
-freely admit and even brag about how little we spent on a gift
-don't feel bad about, and even appreciate, giving and receiving used gifts

One family whom I admire gives each child three presents a year:
-a book
-something useful and practical (like clothes)
-something fun

The reason I never felt deprived (besides the fact that I actually wasn't deprived at all) is that many presents are not as satisfying as just a couple things that are just right. Not advocating asceticism here: I love giving (and getting!) presents. The wonder is in finding just the right gift. The thing that is perfect. This often means not making the thing that I want him to like, that really if I'm honest, I would like making better than he would like having! That's not a good gift. It means buying something if she honestly wouldn't appreciate something I made. It means trying to figure all this out, trying to get to know our family better, and love them more. Presents are supposed to be the loving overflow of our relationships, not the penalty we pay at holidays to avoid guilt and criticism! In that spirit, I'm enjoying this last stretch of making and finding, even knowing that not all my gifts will match my loved ones' heart's desires. (and enjoying the luxury that Paul took the kids away this afternoon so I could work on things; it was heavenly!)

Just to put things in perspective a bit, a different friend recently told me a story about some good friends from Haiti:
-the kids were thrilled to get any present, like a plain shirt.


Oh, the elfin part of the post of this post is the pictures. Can you tell we're impersonating woodland elves? That's a big tree we're inside of! I think it was a cottonwood. Maybe it was struck by lightening long ago, or was deformed otherwise, and healed in this shape?
Also speaking of elves*, we're enjoying a great little book mom gave me years ago, called, Santa's Favorite Christmas Story. It embraces both Santa Clause and the story of Jesus' birth, while helping sort out the difference between the two for kids. And it's beautifully illustrated, with salty watercolor paintings!
*Though there are no elves in this story, but elves make me think of Santa.