welcome friends and most

Welcome everyone! I discovered that my blog is in my husband's Google Reader list. We share a computer at home, so I'm not exactly surprised. Hi Sweetie! You've been outed! (Or is it me who has been outed?) Anyway, I've decided to share my blog with friends. Out of town friends who I am unlikely to want to write about. I haven't invited my mom, other family, or local friends. Not sure why I'm feeling bashful about this, but I am. So, don't go telling my mom to read this. I'm sure I'll want to write about her sometime if you do. My sister for sure, and I can't rant about my darling husband now anyway, can I? So, if you are one of those friends, known in my email address book as "Old Friends" (sorry), then welcome.

I've always been a writer. If Northwestern U. had accepted me that early admission date in the darkages, I would have been a journalism major. They didn't. I became a psychology major instead, at another school. Why not a journalism major there? You ask too many questions. I don't know. I was eighteen.

Occasionally I pick up a pen and write about amusing events in my life. I emailed lots of people on the day I caught my lawn mower on fire (sorry, no copy around) and I try to share funny anecdotes when I update our website. When I got involved as an early Parent Hacker, Asha tried to convince me to start a blog of my own. I procrastinated for a few years. Honestly, did I need something else to take up my time? But I gave in this winter and decided to try it. Immediately some of the bloggers who had read my comments on their own blogs followed me and left comments for me. Intermittent positive reinforcement. (I said I was a psych major.) And so, here I am. Welcome.

rappers and whackers

I've mentioned our enjoyment of books by Beverly Cleary before, and the one currently in our house is no exception: Ramona Quimby, Age 8. I'll just have to quote her. " There were a number of ways of cracking eggs. The most popular, and the real reason for bringing an egg to school, was knocking the egg against one's head. There were two ways of doing so, by a lot of timid little raps or by one big whack." (The part that comes next is worth tears of laughter, but I don't dare spoil it for you. Get thee to a local library!)

I read this aloud to both boys the day we were dyeing eggs for Easter. They were, of course, rolling with laughter, as was I. And how could I not say that they'd be able to try it with our own eggs after Easter? Of course I suggested it! I predicted Bug to be a whacker (as would most people) and that Pook would probably be a rapper unless he was strongly influenced by Bug. I thought I'd prove to them both what a cool mom I was by whacking an egg myself.

So the time came at which all beautifully colored Easter eggs become egg salad. In my opinion, the only reason to dye them in the first place. You can't hide candy in a hard boiled egg. Kids don't usually like hard boiled eggs. You can't hide and re-hide and re-hide hard boiled eggs for the days following Easter. You dye them, enjoy them briefly, then eat egg salad.

The kids were incredulous. "You mean we can really whack them? Really?" I pulled out two bowls, one for eggs, one for shells (ha! that's what the floor was for!) and told them to go for it (as soon as I got out my camera to videotape the whacking ceremony. And which we will post on our family's website, eventually.)

Pook picked up the first egg, carefully dyed blue on one end and green on the other with a rubber banded white stripe in four directions as if it were a small package. Then he whacked that egg on his head. Hard. Bug immediately followed suit. They picked up egg after egg to whack them, then, surprisingly, they completely peeled them for me. And then ate egg salad with little pink and blue specks from having a few slightly cracked eggs placed in dye.

Me? I was a timid rapper. Those eggs are hard!

spring in the south

It is the day after this year's early Easter and the Bradford pear trees are blooming in Atlanta. And the plum, cherry and crab apple. Forsythia is sending up golden yellow sprays. The azaleas are starting to come out. Apartment and corporate landscapes have red tulips. The city is wrapped in white, pink and purple. But the trees are also beautiful when they lose their blossoms. They float in masses through the air, settling in corners and sprinkling the grass with white. Once I stood in awe in the preschool parking lot - might have been with Pook - and scooped up handfuls, throwing them into the air.

I noticed them this morning as lovely blossoms flew gracefully around the yard and in sweeps across the sidewalks and roads. I sighed and thought of my poor Northern friends as they were shivering in yet more snow. I left the house, feeling cheerful and optimistic about spring, and I went to go pick up Bug at preschool.

Oh, how beautiful! More blossoms falling all over my car as I drove through the neighborhood. No. My windshield was getting wet. From flower petals? No. From snow.


Humbled, I picked up Bug. As I waited for him to fasten his seatbelt, the sun returned and a billow of pale petals blew across the parking lot. Ah. Spring in the South.



*** This photo was taken one week later at the preschool parking lot. It was a dreary, rainy day, but those pink snowflakes sure do make for beautiful snow!

go Lego: teach my kid patience

I remember very few toys from my childhood. I played with baby dolls and stuffed animals and Lego. They didn't make Duplo or Quatro or Mega Blocks or any of the other variations that exist now. It was little Lego pieces that made a clinky noise when my mother vacuumed the shag rug by where we played. According to my mother, my sister got some when she was three. That means that I, the hunks-of-grass-from-the-lawn-eating-baby, must have had access to those tiny Lego blocks. And I suppose those that I didn't eat I must have used to build. My memories start much later when I made lots of houses and schools. Once a fancy airport, but usually rectangular buildings.

We've had Duplo and Mega Blocks around here for years. Pook was chewing on Duplo before his first birthday. His favorite (tasting) pieces were a small Duplo guy's torso and a piece with some mail on it. Bug came along and started using destroying the Duplo creations and Pook had to start hiding it. We kept Bug away from it as much as we could. He was only two when Pook received his first small piece Lego kit. While age five was maybe a little too young, Pook did get that first creation finished finally. It took a lot of sweat and tears (from both of us). In the past year Pook has done several more elaborate Lego sets and found them much easier. I'd say his sixth birthday would have been a better age than his fifth.

Bug didn't show much interest in building with it himself until recently. Now he wants to build a castle like Pook's set and build a Star Wars ship like Pook's and build a robot like Pook has and build a whatever like Pook has. The good thing is, he's using it and making great creative projects.

The bad thing is, Lego structures of all types break. Often. I've worked on the concept of "catching/covering the cracks" to strengthen things they've built. Pook has the concept pretty well down, but Bug is just starting to create and some of his items are just asking to be touched (or looked at wrong) so they can break. Worse yet, they're touched (or looked at wrong) by someone else (such as the brother) and they break. Often it brings on tears and the just-barely-broken-and-easily-repaired item is thrown across the room. I know this is the start of a meltdown as that loss of control causes great frustration.

However, one time I got to hear, "It's just a little destroyed. I can make it good as new. Oh no! Again! I can fix it but it was a really big one. But I can make a new one with these pieces."

Lego as frustration tolerance. Good stuff.

bunny baskets

Bug gets in the car after preschool and starts his monologue. Since Pook is usually a one word answering kid about school, I love hearing Bug tell me all of his day. Today it was talk about Easter. He tells me all about "Jesus and the Bad Guys". The "bad guys wanted to be in charge so they didn't like Jesus and made him carry a cross a really long time and he got sweaty and bloody and stuff." Oh. Ok. Then he brings up the Easter Bunny. They are having an egg hunt this Friday. That way they can celebrate St. Patrick's Day on Monday and have no school Wed. or Fri. next week. (Oh, lucky me!)

"The Easter Bunny is coming." he says. Brief pause... then, "Is the Easter Bunny real?"
Oh my. His brother hasn't asked me that one yet. Yikes. Think quick...
"I guess he has to be a person because that would be impossible-- a bunny holding an Easter basket. Can I play with my light saber when we get home?"

Saved by impatience this time.