Beddy-Bye

People call it many different things--co-sleeping, shared sleeping, family bed--but it all boils down to whose head hits the pillow where. There are staunch advocates on both, polar-opposite sides of the issue. Some folks believe that firm space boundaries between parent area and kid area are necessary for emotionally healthy development. Others are committed to the notion that a constant physical connection or near-connection between parents and children provides a sense of security not possible with forced separation. I am in the wear ‘em, nurse ‘em, and make room for ‘em in the middle camp and I have no regrets about it. It’s how I feel most comfortable. There are many things I love about family bed--spending a few magic moments together before the whirlwind of the day starts, having them handy for nursing, knowing for sure they are breathing, having a human hot water bottle--but it’s not all great. Waking up soggy, and all the sheet changing that goes with it, is not fun. Getting kicked repeatedly in the back or stomach by a toddler who is forming the center bar of a parent “H” is not conducive to quality sleep. And if you have a sleep-talking kid, peace and quiet are at a premium. But I wouldn’t trade the great moments for all the Zs in the alphabet. In Rosemary Wells’ Goodnight Max, one little guy milks bedtime attention for all it’s worth. If they practiced family bed, his big people would do a lot less running around.

http://www.amazon.com/Goodnight-Max-Ruby-Rosemary-Wells/dp/0670887072

http://www.eduplace.com/kids/tnc/mtai/wells.html

Say Hello To My Little Friend

I got a sibling as a toddler, so I had a built-in playmate my whole childhood. Then more brothers came along to add to neighbors and school chums, making a whole troop to play with and confide in and even battle with sometimes. I never had an imaginary friend because who had the time? I loved pretending but my fellow actors were always real, live boys and girls and even pets. When I became a mom, the first small person I got was a dedicated pragmatist. Keilana could pretend but most fantasy play seemed strange to her--why would we have a tea party when there isn’t any actual tea? But then I got Connor and everything changed. That little boy not only appreciated pretend, he lived most of every day in a fantasy world of his own making. Everyone was allowed to come visit and play any time, but he took up residence there. His private realm was peopled with characters, both real and pretend, and had countless little storylines running at any given time--which he would tell you about at great length if you had a minute (or an hour) to listen. It’s not that Connor didn’t have anyone to play with, he just loved playing so much that he could never get enough. In Bernard Most’s My Very Own Octopus, another little boy imagines what it would be like to have a tentacled friend always at his side. Connor had a seal, but I don’t remember any octopi.

http://www.amazon.com/Very-Own-Octopus-Bernard-Most/dp/0152563458

http://www.bernardmost.com/

The Clean Machine

I once watched transfixed as a woman from church talked to my mother while wagging her newborn twelfth child tummy-down on one hand. Every time she punctuated a thought or made a point, her baby-filled hand would wave around with abandon while its cargo went peacefully along for the ride. Mom was confident, baby was content and I decided right then and there that when I had small people some day, I wanted to be more like a twelfth-time mom than a first-time mom. There’s a lot to be learned from folks who have gone around the parent track a few times. Like the mother of ten whose problem-solving technique for squabbling siblings was to have the combatants stand with foreheads touching until they had worked out their differences. Weird, but effective. Perhaps the best trick I learned from a veteran parent was motivated room cleaning. Every parent knows how impossible it is to get kids to tidy up the room--stalling, whining, complaining. So, one experienced mom of a large brood solved the dilemma by having the kids clean each other’s rooms, trash bags in hand. The temptation, of course, is to throw everything away and be done in five seconds, but you know your sibling is in your room thinking the same thing, so you try to be careful. Clean rooms and some empathy training? Everybody wins. In The Messy Room, Stan and Jan Berenstain show how getting it together works. It’s not easy, but it is worth it.

http://www.amazon.com/Berenstain-Bears-Messy-Room/dp/0394856392

http://www.berenstainbears.com/

Lonely Hearts

Alone with my grandfather for the first time since my grandmother, his great love, slipped away, he was consumed with sadness. So worried about what he might do to himself in grief, we were on constant shifts of watchfulness--never leaving this independent, grown man to his own devices even for a moment. And I wondered why. Why couldn’t he choose for himself how he wanted to handle this new and savagely painful stage of his existence? As we sat, he looked up me with such misery and said, “I wouldn’t care if I went tomorrow. I wouldn’t.” And I understood. He’d done it all. In his ninety years, he got married, got recruited, went to war, went to work, had a family, had a mortgage, lived, aged, and, finally, mourned. His partner and companion of seventy-two years was gone, his children grown and grandparents themselves, his working life long since set aside. What was there to stay for? I knew he wouldn’t last long and I’d be back again soon to say my final goodbyes to him. Then I saw something amazing: video of my nonagenarian grandfather learning to play Wii boxing, and having a blast. Not that he wasn’t a fun guy, just that I thought he was done enjoying himself in this life. I was gladly mistaken. In Michael Rosen’s Sad Book, he mourns the loss of his son and his happiness, but celebrates the eventual return of joy. And it does show up in the darndest places.

P.S. Check out how cute they are in the Facebook video clip below.

http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Rosens-Boston-Globe-Horn-Honors/dp/0763625973

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Rosen

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=428841976072

Seeing Things

Approaching a birthday this summer, and about to lose my vision coverage, I decided to go get my eyes checked just for the heck of it. I wasn’t having any problems seeing, but it seemed a waste to let any chance for healthcare slip away. So, I made an appointment and sat in the waiting area with all those poor people who aren’t blessed with great eyes like some of us. When I met the doctor, I confidently shook his hand, knowing that we wouldn’t be seeing anymore of each other after he checked my vision. After a couple of tests (which I breezed through with my super great eyes), I waited for the doctor to say he’s never seen such great vision in a forty-three year old and that I have the eyes of a teenager. But he didn’t say that. Or anything like it. What he said was, “Which frames would you like?” I was devastated. Glasses? Worse, reading glasses like some porch-rocking old lady? It’s not enough that gravity has had its way with me? I have to go blind as well? I exaggerate, of course, but I still desperately begged the doctor to tell me what I did to bring this fate upon myself and his response was, “Kept having birthdays.” Which is preferable to the alternative, but it still really stinks. In Tedd Arnold’s More Parts, one little guy goes to great lengths to protect what he’s got. I really need to start doing that.

http://www.amazon.com/More-Parts-Tedd-Arnold/dp/0803714173

http://www.emints.org/ethemes/resources/S00002322.shtml

Go For The Gold

I believe there’s a gene for competition and some people just don’t have it. It doesn’t mean they aren’t skilled, maybe more so considering their motivation is more intrinsically noble, simply that besting some arbitrary benchmark or talented rival doesn’t light their fire. Having been genetically pre-determined to overachieving, I get a strange sensation when I encounter folk who do stuff just because they enjoy it rather than to prove something. I think it’s called bewilderment and I’ve experienced it with my oldest daughter since she got here. Since Keilana’s paternal line is full of water-dominating merpeople, she was born a natural swimmer. She was good. I mean really good. My competitive instincts kicked in something fierce and I couldn’t wait to get her on the local swim team. I knew she would rock their world. Promptly after her fifth birthday, we showed up poolside to claim our victory, but only one of us was on board. After effusively praising Keilana’s swimming prowess, I stepped back to let them see for themselves. And we all watched Keilana pretend to drown for the next thirty minutes. Back in the car, I asked the child who could swim the length of an Olympic-sized pool at four what happened. Her answer was simple: she only wanted to swim for fun. Such an option never occurred to me. In Erica Silverman’s Don’t Fidget A Feather, Gander and Duck go mano y mano and friendship wins. I didn’t know there was a trophy for that…

P.S. Happy Birthday, Nana! We love you!

http://www.amazon.com/Fidget-Feather-Turtleback-Library-Binding/dp/0613076419

http://www.ericasilverman.com/

Half And Half

In the great glass half-empty or half-full debate, I am a hardcore half-emptier. I don’t understand pretending things are rosier than real life. And I really don’t see how my attitude toward the contents of any metaphorical glass are going to influence the sum total of those contents. The ones who call themselves optimists have a name for people like me: pessimist. But people on my side of the glass conundrum have a name for ourselves: realists. Because the real truth is that if half of what you had is gone, feeling good about what you have left, while pleasant, doesn’t bring it back. Having said all that, though, I do feel excited about reaching the halfway point in our book blogging year today. We made it! We’re finally here. We stuck to it, even on challenging days, and now half the year is behind us. But, and here’s where the existential angst comes into play, it’s also with great anticipation that I look forward to the reading moments ahead. I love that everyone in the house is on high-alert for reading every day. I like that the children’s librarian knows Scarlett’s name and Scarlett can recognize the “liberry” when we get close on our bikes. So, what book got the coveted halfway spot? Daddy and Scarlett picked Frank Asch’s Ziggy Piggy And The Three Little Pigs to find out how a new addition to the old fairy tale mixes things up. It’s been half a year and all’s well.


http://www.amazon.com/Ziggy-Piggy-Three-Little-Pigs/dp/1550745158

http://www.frankasch.com/splash.html

Voices From The Past

I am fascinated by the science of retrieving sound waves from wherever they go after they hit the air and dissipate. Since waves don’t end but keep spreading out, any sound ever made is technically still out there waiting to be rounded up and heard again. That’s incredible. It means, among other things, that if we could refine the science enough, we could literally hear epic moments like the Gettysburg Address or re-experience sweet, personal exchanges like a baby cooing. How eerie yet thrilling would it be to stand in a field in Pennsylvania and hear Abraham Lincoln’s actual voice brought back to life by modern technology corralling scattered sound waves? But, in some ways, I don’t think we need to wait for those advances. Have you ever been somewhere and heard the echoes of the past? Not specific words, maybe, but whispers of sound that seem to linger. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, there is a massive natural stronghold of great tactical benefit during the Civil War. The army that controlled Lookout Mountain, with its towering height and expansive view, was in a position of virtually impenetrable superiority, and as such it was the scene of fierce fighting. At the base of the mountain, if you stand very still and listen very carefully, the wind still carries the sounds of long ago. It is haunted. In Walt Disney Production’s The Haunted House, Mickey and friends are hearing things. I wonder if it would help to know it’s just trapped sound waves.

P.S. Enjoy your book, Little Rhys!

http://www.amazon.com/HAUNTED-HOUSE-Disneys-Wonderful-Reading/dp/039492570X

http://www.earlymoments.com/Our-Products/Disney-Book-Club/

Gender Bender

I grew up in a household divided along strict gender lines. My dad went to work, and my mom never stopped working. All domestic duties (which are endless) fell under the umbrella of her job. She’d heard of the sexual revolution, but never considered it as applying to her. I’ve never had that problem. Or, frankly, those skills. I always knew I would have a life beyond the walls of my home, and it’s a good thing because I am terrible at neat. I don’t know why, really, because keeping things organized seems like a brain thing and I’ve always been one of the smart girls. Obviously, there’s more to it than that. Which is why I have the husband I do. He’s young, had a working mom, and is comfortable with flexible gender roles. For the past two years, he’s been the one taking care of the homefront while I punch the clock, and it’s worked pretty nicely for us. One of the best parts of having reversed the traditional scheme of things is that I now have a fella who understands just how quickly clean gets messy and how unending the neatness battle is. Especially when your life is turned upside-down by people no higher than your knees. In Teri Sloat’s This Is The House That Was Tidy & Neat, when mom leaves all you-know-what breaks out and it takes the whole family to get it back together before she comes home. I like that kind of commitment.

http://us.macmillan.com/thisisthehousethatwastidyandneat

http://www.terisloat.com/

Tub Time

Scarlett loves to climb things, the higher and more hazardous, the better. There’s nothing you can do to stop a climber, so we kiss a lot of boo-boos. Just yesterday, she had a four-point fall from the kitchen table, bouncing off a chair seat and two push-toys on the way down. Since Keilana was here, three of Scarlett’s big people jumped up to love the hurt away, and I thought how nice it would be if that trend continued our whole lives. Wouldn’t it be amazing if the things that made us feel better as children didn’t fade away or lose their magic? Like the bathtub. Remember how, as a kid, you spent hours playing in the bath? There were bubbles and water toys, so many things to make getting clean just that much more fun. Having long hair most of my childhood, I could lie back in the warm water and let my tresses flow around me like a mermaid, feeling beautiful and exotic. I especially loved the tub when I was sick. Something about the tension relief of the water and the warm, foggy air of the bathroom had recuperative powers. Even when my bath was done, I would dry everything with a towel and snuggle up with blankets in the empty tub. It’s where my mom always knew to look when she couldn’t find me. In Audrey Wood’s King Bidgood’s In The Bathtub, the monarch won’t leave the tub no matter what. He might be onto something.

http://www.amazon.com/King-Bidgoods-Bathtub-Audrey-Wood/dp/0152427309

http://www.audreywood.com/mac_site/clubhouse/clubhouse_page/clubhouse.htm

Don't I Know You From Somewhere?

About a month before Keilana was born, two babies were mixed up at the hospital and sent home with the wrong families. I was so freaked out about it that even in the drug-induced fog of an emergency C-section, I kept grabbing my brother’s shirt (since he’s the only one who could make it on time) and begging him not to let the baby out of his sight. The doctor tried to ease my mind by telling me that all the other babies in the nursery were boys and if I got one with a, well, you know, I should send it back. That was fine for an identification method while still at the hospital, but what about when we went home and the I.D. bracelets came off? At first, I was neurotically terrified and would look intently at her face for minutes at a time trying to memorize it--all the while nurturing a silent dread that if someone tested me on picking my little one out of a baby crowd, I would fail. I would break out into a cold sweat imagining trying to keep identical twins straight. How do moms handle that? It turns out that I was worried for nothing because even in the unlikely event that my eyes didn’t recognize my baby, my heart would have. In Fiona Watt’s That’s Not My Dinosaur, Mouse, while not being Dinosaur’s mother, still knows just what the one he loves does (and doesn’t) look like. It’s a heart thing.

http://www.amazon.com/Thats-Dinosaur-Usborne-Touchy-Feely/dp/079450129X

http://www.allbookstores.com/author/Fiona_Watt.html

Back To School

At Addison’s sixth grade graduation last May, I realized that this Fall, for the first time in sixteen years, I won’t have a child in elementary school. Then I did some more quick math and discovered that by the time Scarlett goes to junior high, I will have had at least one child in the primary grades for twenty-three years out of a twenty-six year span. What am I supposed to do with that?! I love school, I truly do, but the thought of more than two dozen school supplies shopping trips is a bit overwhelming. Just the sheer number of backpacks I will have purchased in that timeframe boggles the mind, not to mention taking a hefty bite out of the bank account. There is something about that first day, though, isn’t there? There is an anticipation in the days right before a new school year begins that is unlike any other. You’ve got new clothes, which you can’t wear yet, and all those new pencils, erasers, and pens just begging to be used. It’s still summery outside, with the sky staying light much later than bedtime, and sleeping in still seems like a good idea. Waiting to use a new lunch box or wear new shoes was torture, and I willed the days to go faster (one aspect I’ve outgrown). In Kathleen W. Zoehfeld’s My First Winnie-the-Pooh Growing Up Stories, the Hundred Acre Wood gang gets ready to go back to school. I wonder who buys their backpacks.

http://www.amazon.com/Disneys-Winnie-Storybook-Collection-Collections/dp/0786834447

http://www.ranker.com/list/kathleen-w-zoehfeld-books-and-stories-and-written-works/reference

The Other Side Of The Story

I was once part of a group which took the Myers-Briggs personality test to get to know ourselves and our colleagues better. When we gathered to open our envelopes and I watched each person check their results, I noticed that all four areas of the test were represented by left-to-right low-to-high scales and individual scores varied along those scales. Except mine. When I got a look at my personality on paper, I thought there were no marks along the spectrum. But I discovered that it only appeared my scales were blank because the markers were actually so far to the right--the extremely high edge--that they were hard to see. Like burying a speedometer (which I ruefully admit to having done). So, I am as ENTJ as you can possibly get. There are complimentary things to say about my type--natural leaders, take-charge personalities, problem-solvers--but most of the descriptors are just nice ways of saying “really, really in your face.” And a big part of that is the capital “E,” for extrovert. I learned some useful information from that experience, but the most valuable was how we recharge our internal batteries. Extroverts literally draw energy from being with other people, while introverts are drained by the very same contact. Which explains a lot. I always describe Nick as being as introverted as I am extroverted--if you can imagine such a person. Maybe that’s why we fit so well. In A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh’s Opposites, every yin has a yang. Sometimes that’s just right.

http://www.powells.com/biblio/74-9780525421436-0

http://www.winniethepooh.co.uk/author.html

Lowering The Bar

I make a point of clearing some brain space before each semester to accommodate the new stuff my students will proffer. I get rid of useless information (like anything regarding Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea) and anticipate the new. That’s not to say my students always get it right. Many of them are relatively recent additions to this world, some even to this country, so they’re still figuring things out. A common mistake made by international students is giving American scholarship too much credit. If they haven’t been here very long, they still think there is plenty to be had. But, never fear, our plucky can-do American enthusiasm (and our can’t-do American reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic) set them straight. Not that I think all stateside students are mediocre (on the contrary, I know some real cracker jacks), but when you get whole classes asking about extra credit for showing up to school the day before a holiday, you start to sense a theme. This summer, one Japanese student gave a persuasive speech about the benefits of student exchange, particularly the idea that when foreign students come here and excel it motivates American-born students to higher achievement. Sure it does. Ever been the one to “ruin” the curve? You only have to do that once to see just how motivating it is for your classmates. Theo LeSieg’s Ten Apples Up On Top is a cautionary tale about the perils of overachieving in America. And, happy ending notwithstanding, they are legion.

P.S. Happy Birthday, Uncle Ben! We love you!

http://www.amazon.com/Ten-Apples-Top-Beginner-Books/dp/0394800192

http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/contributor.jsp?id=166971

I Am What I Am

Each time I stand in front of the nail polish display, it is an exciting moment. I am filled with the brash hope that this is the time I will set my daring true self free by finally choosing the bold signature color I was meant to wear. I peruse and ponder and compare, looking for the one. The truly different one. When I glimpse it, there in the back, I push all the other, lesser shades aside like Indiana Jones reaching for the cup of Christ, and rejoice when I feel its cool heft in my hand. Mine! Different and interesting are finally mine! I whisk it home, barely able to part with it long enough for the scanner to pass its jealous laser eyes over my bottle of liquid awesome, and spirit it away to the upstairs. I lock myself in the bathroom and pull out my baby wipe container of old, boring, conventional nail polish to show them their doom…only to discover that what I was absolutely certain would be my radical departure from bondage is the exact same color as every other bottle of nail polish I have ever owned. Ever. Apparently, my subconscious knows who I am even if I don’t. Which is why those personality tests always say I should forget any career other than teaching. It’s who I am. In Douglas Florian’s A Bird Can Fly, each creature is only authentically them. Easy enough when you don’t have to worry about nail polish.

http://www.amazon.com/Bird-Can-Fly-Douglas-Florian/dp/0688842666

http://www.harpercollinschildrens.com/HarperChildrens/Kids/AuthorsAndIllustrators/ContributorDetail.aspx?CId=16495

Time And Time Again

Ritual is important. Nothings binds us to each other like special things we always do no matter what. Every person I know, regardless of their past, seems to cling to at least one sweet memory of ritual. Little things like reading the comics together each Sunday or walks to the park to feed the ducks. Somehow, seemingly mundane interactions can take on a sort of golden quality. There is a story in family lore that, as a preschooler, I unknowingly planted the seed for ritual. I don’t remember Valentine’s Day when I was three, but the legend is that I was crushed when my mom received a valentine from my dad and I did not. Apparently, I was so inconsolable over the idea that he “didn’t love his own little daughter,” he was compelled to bring home a valentine for me on that and every subsequent Valentine’s Day until I was an adult. Even in years when we were separated by distance both emotional and geographic, I could still rely on February’s ritual. Scarlett and her daddy have a ritual, too. When the hour for night-night arrives, they collect a bouquet of binkies, give kisses, and make their way up the stairs. I am waved off by a tiny diva hand if I try to follow. This is their time and no mommies are allowed. In Dan Yaccarino’s Every Friday, an ordinary workday morning turns into special time. Sometimes you just have to hang out with dad. I get it.

http://www.amazon.com/Every-Friday-Dan-Yaccarino/dp/0805077243

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Yaccarino

Music Man

When an ultrasound revealed that I was getting a Connor rather than a Kelsey, I panicked. I had been saying for years that I hoped to have a son someday so I could know at least one man had been raised right, and now it was real. How do you parent the man of the next millennium? What is the perfect combination of Sylvester Stallone and Alan Alda? I decided on a balanced approach and went straight to the store to buy both a ball and a Raggedy Andy. But it didn’t really matter what I did or didn’t do or buy or decide. Connor arrived, as they all do, already himself. And from the beginning, he was all (stereotypical) boy. He loved trucks, turned everything he held in his hand into a firearm, and could get dirty in the bathtub. He thrived on mess and noise and chaos and bugs. He was a rough-and-tumble little man in training and that’s why he surprised the stuffing out of me the day he joined the orchestra at his elementary school. It was not so much that he’d chosen to play an instrument--lots of guys wail on the sax or guitar--but it was the instrument he’d chosen to play. Connor came home with a slender, little case only big enough for…a flute. Yep, a flute. Who knew? In Anne Rockwell’s Root-A-Toot-Toot, one little boy and his flute collect a whole barnyard of followers. And why not? The Pied Piper was cool, right?

http://www.amazon.com/Root-Toot-Toot-Anne-Rockwell/dp/B000O8T3NS

http://www.childrensliteraturenetwork.org/birthbios/brthpage/02feb/2-8rockwell.html

Gifted

One year during elementary school, my brother and I attended a magnet school for gifted children. It would be more accurately described as a twisted little torture factory staffed by bureaucratic minions where clueless stage parents sent their self-obsessed, horrible children. But I digress… I knew I should feel fortunate, especially since it required sacrifice on the part of my parents, but I hated it there. Those kids were from a different world and their parents were attorneys and surgeons not blue-collar beat cops and stay-at-home moms. I didn’t speak their language, wear their clothes, or fit into their caste system. There were only two bright spots in my genius-academy experience: I was a teacher’s aide in the kindergarten class, which sealed forever my desire to teach, and we had a college student helper who could see things for what they were, often standing between me and the in-crowd. Like during track-and-field day on my mom’s birthday. I mostly dreaded those kinds of contests, but this day was different because the winner of each race would get a prize and I needed a present for my mom. I got my heart set on a ring with Ronald McDonald’s face on it--knowing my mother would love it. The race was run, I lagged miserably behind, and the kind student slipped me the ring for “Best Effort.” Present problem solved. In Vera B. Williams' A Chair For My Mother, a girl desperately wants a present for her mom. It’s a daughter thing.

http://www.kidsreads.com/authors/au-williams-vera.asp

http://www.amazon.com/Chair-My-Mother-Vera-Williams/dp/068800914X

The Stuff Of Dreams

Someone told me there’s a law saying that a person cannot be held legally responsible for anything they do in the first thirty seconds after waking, but I’ve never been able to find proof of it. The idea seems loaded with opportunities for abuse--the “Drowsy Defense,” maybe?--but there is something about it that makes sense. How many times have you had that waking instant when you didn’t know where you were? Sometimes even in your own bed. It is an unsettling feeling when you can’t find your bearings right away. It’s also weird to encounter someone who is still very much asleep but their subconscious didn’t get the memo. A few years ago, I woke in the middle of the night to Nick rummaging around in the dresser making an ungodly noise. Annoyed at being roused by such bizarre behavior, I asked him what in the world he was doing. He kept slamming drawers and said, “It’s the way they market the music!” Then I realized I was dealing with a sleeping Beatles fan who’d been reading too much John Lennon biography before bed. I told him we’d work it out and to come back to bed, which he did, but I have reflected many times on how very asleep he was and how that might have manifested itself in other circumstances. In Robert Munsch’s Get Out Of Bed!, Amy has a hard time falling asleep, but when she does nothing can wake her. I wonder how she feels about the Beatles.

http://www.amazon.com/Get-Out-Bed-Robert-Munsch/dp/0439388511

http://www.emints.org/ethemes/resources/S00001772.shtml

Everybody's Somebody's Baby

Perspective. It’s easy to lose in the hassle of everythingness--particularly as a mother. But every once in awhile, something comes along to put things back into perspective. At a recent family gathering, Scarlett’s Auntie Liz, devoted first-time mom to our beloved cousin Baby Simon, remarked on how surprised she was at the morbid worry tendency of moms, while reeling off a litany of traumatic scenarios constantly looming in her imagination. And, instead of being able to allay her fears with the promise that it gets better as they get older, all the mothers in earshot had a moment of perspective. I realized, again, that, no matter how much time passes from when they show up earthside, each child in the world that belongs to you, by birth or by import, walks around their daily life with a fragile piece of your heart in their possession. And it gets worse as they get more autonomous, when you can’t hold them every minute and oversee everything--which is accelerated when you have an independent one. I knew from the time Keilana got here that I had better learn to let her go. She’s the only child I know who cried when she got picked up from preschool and declared her day at kindergarten “private.” In Nancy Tafuri’s Have You Seen My Duckling?, Mama Duck has seven stay-at-home babies and one wanderer--who sparks a book-wide search. My duckling is now a beautiful swan…but I still wish I could tuck her under my wing sometimes.

http://www.amazon.com/Have-You-Seen-My-Duckling/dp/0688148999

http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/contributor.jsp?id=3676

Who's The Boss?

One of the most random, yet fascinating, speech topics I’ve heard lately is the complex social structure of vultures. It turns out those hideous birds actually have more rules than most human societies, and far more than any NFL team. And one of those rules determines alpha leadership, like in packs of wolves and guys at the gym during open-court basketball. I never knew you could be head vulture, but I know you can be alpha hamster. It sounds crazy, but hear me out. Years ago, Keilana talked me into bringing home a hamster. Now, granted, Star was a rodent and rodents can be seriously annoying, but this particular hamster was a punk. Despite our best efforts at compassionate pet ownership, that little son of a gun would bite like a fiend every time she got picked up. Until one day she disappeared. Assuming she had gotten out and met an untimely demise, I didn’t mention it to Keilana so that I could delay the inevitable “talk.” But Star showed back up, gentle as a lamb. When I asked Keilana about it, she said that she got tired of the hamster being such a jerk so she shoved her in the plastic Barbie stove. For three days. And Star, recognizing Keilana’s new alpha status, was well-behaved forever more. In Patty Wolcott’s Where Did That Naughty Little Hamster Go?, the title rodent doesn’t mind being beta as long as it means he gets a cozy hamster-sized bed. Even hamsters need leadership.

http://www.amazon.com/Where-That-Naughty-Little-Hamster/dp/0201142457


http://www.bestwebbuys.com/Patty_Wolcott-mcid_2281736.html?isrc=b-authorsearch

Color Coded

My generation are the television cusp kids. The biggest changes and developments in television viewing have happened in our lifetime. Think about it: we went from three channels and endless hours of shouting out the window to direct our dads which way to turn the antennae, to a million channels and endless hours of watching anything we want on our kids’ XBox 360. Although the biggest leap was the one from grey-scale to color. Remember? When we were really young, most programs were still taped in black and white, which worked very nicely because no one had color sets anyway. But then things changed drastically. If you were lucky enough to have a color television, turning on the set was like Dorothy stepping into Oz. The networks scrambled to best the competition with their prismatic line-up. Programs even boasted of their technicolor triumphs in the opening credits. And the one I remember most is the bold banner proclaiming “In Living Color” across the bottom of the screen when “Batman” came on. Not having a color set, and not realizing it was the box rather than the broadcast that determined what I saw, I would feel my heart race each time the words unfurled. Only to be disappointed, of course, when what appeared were still black-and-white images. I rejoiced when the new television showed up and never took a single, vivid POW! for granted. In Ellen Stoll Walsh’s Mouse Paint, some mischievous rodents color-rock their monochromatic world. Now that’s living color.

http://www.amazon.com/Mouse-Paint-Ellen-Stoll-Walsh/dp/0152002650

http://www.teddarnoldbooks.com/ellen.html

The Good Book

Perspectives on the historical accuracy of the Bible seem to run from those who don’t buy any of it, to those who find it useful, to those who believe it is the honest-to-goodness, inerrant word of God (but only to be followed in specific instances). There was even that wacky guy who spent a year living by all the rules in the Bible, including not touching anything touched by a woman during “that time,” but whose wife promptly paid him back by touching all the chairs in the house so he had to spend the rest of the year sitting on the floor. With me having grown up in a religious tradition that allows for translation errors and Nick spending his childhood as a “gypsy Christian” never settling anywhere, we are still deciding whether we think all the events of the Bible could have literally occurred or not. We like the book, especially the New Testament with its messages of “be kind to others” and “care more about your own mistakes than those of others.” But the Old Testament is not as warm and fuzzy, is it? When you got in trouble back then, it was serious. Just ask a Babelite or anyone who wasn’t part of Noah’s crew. And don’t even get me started on that whole pillar of salt thing. In the Bendon Press version of Jonah, one guy in particular had some time to think about bad choices. Now that was a time out of biblical proportion.

http://www.amazon.com/Jonah-Bible-Board-Book-4/dp/B001L59SII

http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=26522939

Size Matters

I have to laugh when people talk about how sweet and innocent children are. And not a gentle, “so true, so true” kind of laugh. A wry, derisive laugh often accompanied by some sort of grimace. It’s not that I don’t find truth in such a remark, it’s just that, as a blanket statement, I don’t find it particularly accurate. Kids (well, some kids) can be angelic and endearing, but they can also be snarky little mean machines with barracuda-like instincts. Have you ever hung around a kindergarten playground for any length of time? Better yet, have you ever been five years old yourself? It’s a jungle gym out there, with survival of the fittest reigning supreme, and you don’t want to be caught at the shallow end of the gene pool. Any perceived weakness can work against you--glasses, overweight, smart, fashion-impaired, athletically-challenged--but the thing most likely to tip the victim vs. victimizer playground scale is the evolutionarily prescribed bigger is better. Job titles and trophy wives will come into play down the road, but, in third grade, you want to be or be friends with someone who is furthest from the ground. When tennies hit asphalt, whether you get to play or eat your lunch in peace or keep your stuff is determined by a hierarchy slanted toward the big kids. In Martha Alexander’s Blackboard Bear, one little boy has to draw himself a big, furry friend to get some attention. I could make a fortune off that chalk.

http://www.amazon.com/Blackboard-Bear-Martha-Alexander/dp/0763606677

http://www.charlesbridge.com/contributorinfo.cfm?ContribID=157

Made With Love

When I was very young, my grandma crocheted an afghan for our family. It was meant for general use, but I laid claim to it early on. I was fascinated by how all those squares were each unique. I looked and looked for repeats, but there were none. My grandma was just too clever for that. I also liked how each square was individual on the inside but brought together by a unifying border of black yarn. That afghan made me feel connected to my grandma--thinking of her choosing odds and ends of yarn from her wooden bowl and sitting on her red plaid couch watching “Wheel of Fortune” while working on a gift for us. When I lost my grandma recently, that afghan of many colors came to my mind again for the first time in years. I wondered if it was still around somewhere so I could take solace from it, but it was just wishful thinking. It was long gone and that fact, added to fresh loss, felt really unbearable. Then I realized something wonderful: my grandmother hadn’t just given me a blanket, she had shared with me a love of creating things and the best way to remember her was to make myself a new afghan. Which I promptly did. In Patricia Polacco’s The Keeping Quilt, a family tells their story of love in every stitch of a beautiful blanket. I keep mine on the back of the couch and think of my grandma every day.

http://www.amazon.com/Keeping-Quilt-Patricia-Polacco/dp/0689844476

http://www.patriciapolacco.com/