Our Town

Things were different when we were young. I know I’ve frequently used this venue to make that point before, but it’s true. Media and media usage were different. Social conventions were different. Even play was different. And one huge difference in that playtime was a driving impulse to find things to do that weren’t playing video game systems or computer games, isolating ourselves with music only we could hear, or watching television--mostly because we either didn’t have one yet or the tiny, black and white ones we did have didn’t have any programs for kids most of the time. So, we improvised with all the stuff we could lay our hands on, sometimes creating entire toy cities with mix-and-match materials. We used old-fashioned wooden blocks with new-fangled Legos and Bristle Blox. We used Barbies and Star Wars figures and Fisher Price Little People (the original choking-hazard ones, not the big, fat ones they have now). We used wood scraps, fabric remnants, kitchen utensils, and construction castoffs from our newly-built house. If we were desperate (and we usually were) we even used the Legos-for-babies Duplo blocks to finish our creations. And then we would concoct complex storylines, sometimes spreading out over the entire room and several days, to inhabit our new world. In Anastasia Suen’s Red Light, Green Light, one curly-haired boy builds a super highway of his own with bottles, pencils and empty cans. Remembering doing that? Remember those times? I do and I miss them. Those were the days.

P.S. Happy Birthday to my favorite Halloween baby!



http://www.amazon.com/Red-Light-Green-Anastasia-Suen/dp/0152025820

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/childrens_writing/97061

Shady Characters

The first time I heard the word “eclipse,” I was in Pam Studer’s fourth-grade class, and I was skeptical. The sun gets blocked out? During the middle of the day? And you can’t look at it or your retinas will burn up? Right. But the most unbelievable part of the whole thing was when she said that if we poked pinholes in two index cards and held them one over the other just so, and turned our backs to the sun just so, we would be able to project the eclipse safely onto the bottom index card. Through holes the size of pins. Right, that’ll happen. Being an obedient child and an uptight student even in those days, I dutifully did the requisite hole-poking, card-holding, and back-turning without even the most remote belief that this voodoo would work…and darn if it didn’t. Standing there outside the portable classrooms with my knee socks and braids, I learned at least three things: ancient people were justifiably freaked out by eclipses, projection is weird black magic, and I don’t know everything. Or at least I didn’t then. Which was hard news for an overachiever, but did leave open some previously untapped possibilities, so I was able to weather the blow. Oh, and I also learned that natural phenomena are hard to wrap your head around sometimes. In Frank Asch’s Bear Shadow, Bear goes to great lengths to outrun his shady companion--only to discover he never can. Nature just does its own thing sometimes.

http://www.amazon.com/Bear-Shadow-Frank-Asch/dp/0671668668

http://biography.jrank.org/pages/910/Asch-Frank-1946.html

Let's Pretend

There’s an interesting concept known as “Fake it ‘til you make it”--the idea that, even if you haven’t quite internalized new behaviors yet, pretend like you have. There really is a bit of magic to acting “as if.” I know that sounds optimistic (which I rarely do), but hear me out. When I was recently stressing out over an impending court appearance, a dear friend of mine, knowing my theater background, suggested I employ my acting skills and play the role of someone calm and collected. And it really helped. Sure, I broke character a time or two, but it certainly went better than it would have otherwise and made me feel I could handle the situation. That confidence is the secret that is pretending. My brother, John, got into paper engineering (think pop-up books) years ago and was using an Exacto knife for his creations. Tiring of that, he went to a local publisher’s office to ask about their methods. Little did he know he had wandered into the world’s premier pop-up book company and would ask his question as the head of the company happened to be walking past. When the boss inquired about my brother’s experience and body of work, he lied…er…“pretended” that he had a portfolio “at home.” He then frantically worked the next 48 hours to create said portfolio. And got a job. In Disney’s Mickey Mouse, Brave Little Tailor, our favorite rodent pretends he can slay dragons and wins the fair princess. As if.

http://www.paperbackswap.com/Walt-Disneys-Story-Walt-Disney/book/208300/

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

http://www.amazon.com/If-I-were-Polar-Bear/dp/1581170467

Crossing Your Path

Of my parents’ four children, I am the only one who has provided grandkids, so I have never been a natural aunt. Nick’s brother Ben has a son who, besides being an awesome kid, made me an in-law aunt when I married into the family, but none of my siblings have given me a niece or nephew to spoil rotten and then send back. At least none of the two-legged kind. My youngest brother Matthew, the intense attorney, has a few soft spots in his hard-shell personality including cooking, plants, and, most surprising of all, kitties. Well, one kitty. Several years ago, when he was still a lowly undergrad living on a shoestring and staying in crummy rat traps, he fell in love. Or at least committed to a co-dependent relationship with a crazy girl--which passes for love in lots of places. Matt’s lady love was not so much the girlfriend kind as the furry friend kind. He brought home the black ball of fury we came to know as Sabbatha--a clever tribute to the band Black Sabbath--and they settled into a domestic routine from which they have deviated little in all these years. So, I sort of have a niece--who hides in the bedroom when I show up and lays her ears back flat when I come near her. It’s not the ideal aunting situation, but I respect her independence. In Lynley Dodd’s Slinky Malinki, a cat that’s “blacker than black” is “stalking and lurking.” Black cats do that.

P.S. Happy Birthday, Black Cat Guy!


http://www.amazon.com/Slinky-Malinki-Lynley-Dodd/dp/1582461481

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

What Women Want

It’s hard to remember now because we hear it all the time, but the term “family values,” in a political context, isn’t very old. An invention of the early ‘90s, it showed up with such force and has remained so convenient a buzz term, that it feels much, much older. The family values folk co-opted the moral high ground and anyone who didn’t fit the mold was subject to suspicion--no one more than Candice Bergen’s I-am-woman-hear-me-roar character “Murphy Brown.” When the liberated, self-actualized, newscasting feminist poster woman chose to raise a child alone, she took more heat than all the other targets combined. She was even held up to infamous ridicule by then-Vice President Dan Quayle. Yet despite that, or maybe because of it, Murphy Brown emerged as iconic rather than demonic, and smart, independent gals everywhere got a new mentor. Which was empowering for us and great for the ratings of “Murphy Brown.” Until all that success backfired a bit. The Murphy Brown character became so inextricably entwined with the worldview of career women trying to shatter the glass ceiling, that when she had a sweet moment singing “Natural Woman” to her new little baby, it created quite a stir. The feminist crowd felt betrayed by the perceived message that nothing could truly fulfill a woman but motherhood. But I had just had my first baby and I totally understood. In Susan Milord’s If I Could, a mama raccoon makes big promises to her beloved baby. Don’t we all?

http://www.amazon.com/If-I-Could-Mothers-Promise/dp/0763623482

http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/30235/Susan_Milord/index.aspx

Service Credit

It may not seem so to our students, but those of us who teach are always trying to update and improve our classes. We spend an inordinate amount of time analyzing what went well, dissecting what went awry, and debriefing ourselves for next time. Most of this is to reach our students more fully, but a tiny bit is to keep ourselves from going batty with boredom at the repetition that happens so easily (and necessarily) in education. I teach four sessions a year of the same class and have as many as three sections in a session. That’s a lot of sameness. So, I try every semester to make the course a little different than the previous semester. With varied levels of success. But some things I will always keep because I have seen their impact. One of these keepers is the Community Activity my Small Group Discussion students are required to complete. As a group, they must “identify a need in the community and do something to fill that need.” They are given fairly broad leeway with the definitions of “community,” “need,” and “do something,” so I get to see a range of projects each time--with a crowd favorite being throwing 60 lb. hunks of meat to the tigers living at the local wild animal rescue, the Barry R. Kirshner Wildlife Foundation. They love that stuff. And so does the little guy in Margret and H.A. Rey’s Curious George Feeds the Animals. Sometimes community service is really cool.

http://www.amazon.com/Curious-George-Feeds-Animals-ebook/dp/B002JM0X8G

http://reyfriends.net/margretandharey/

Halloween Handyman

My brother John and I were born in the ‘60s--a relatively dad-free zone when it came to the daily tasks of childcare. I know there were men who got their hands, ahem, dirty back then, but they were (and still are all these years later) a brave few. It just didn’t happen, for a lot of reasons--social norms, masculinity paradigms, a workplace all askew--and our dad was no exception. My dad didn’t cook, clean or do bath duty, but he was what dads were supposed to be then: a playmate. Which means that many of my memories of my dad revolve around fun stuff. And no fun stuff is more connected to my dad as I reminisce than Halloween. You see, John was born on Halloween and something about the idea that his birthday would always be overshadowed by the frenzy of costumes and trick-or-treat struck my dad as fundamentally unfair. So, my dad made a big deal out of Halloween for my brother. He always had the most elaborate costume of any kid in the neighborhood (A Jawa with glowing eyes? A working robot suit? Come on!) and it was always because of my dad. He would cut and paste, brainstorm, and even sew if he had to for my brother to feel he was the center of attention. And it seemed to work. In Robert Kraus’ Daddy Long Ears’ Halloween, a bunny daddy who loves Halloween sacrifices his night for his bunny boy. Some dads are like that.

http://catalog.orion.lib.mi.us:81/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=1252D1953E7R3.81985&profile=ori&uri=search=TL~!Daddy%20Long%20Ears%27%20Halloween%20/&term=Daddy%20Long%20Ears%27%20Halloween%20/%20Robert%20Kraus.&aspect=basic_search&menu=search&source=~!horizon

http://openlibrary.org/authors/OL18073A/Kraus_Robert

Commitment

I do community theater in my spare time, and it is a passion of mine. In fact, theater is where I met Nick and where our relationship started, so I owe it big time. I am not a professional actress, nor do I harbor any delusions about playing Broadway someday, but I do demand a pretty high level of performance from myself. And my fellow actors. And that’s where the problem comes in sometimes, because my idea of being devoted to a show (or anything) is usually far more psychotically obsessive than anyone else nearby. So, I spend a lot of time very frustrated. One of my real pet peeves when I’m in a show or even watching a show is when actors don’t realize that, just because they aren’t speaking a line or participating in the center-stage action, we can still see them and will be painfully aware of them getting out of character. I hate that. Conversely, when even the most minor characters are completely immersed in the scene, it is a thing of beauty to behold. Nick and I were fortunate enough to see the Elvis-song-based “All Shook Up” on Broadway, and I will never forget how amazing it was. Each and every actor was fully in character every instant. Every scene was a beautifully choreographed dance and I wanted to kiss the bit players and chorus members for their commitment. In Felicia Bond’s The Halloween Performance, Roger’s part is tiny…but he gives it his all. Bravo!

http://www.amazon.com/Halloween-Performance-Felicia-Bond/dp/B003MY64NI

http://www.harpercollinschildrens.com/Kids/AuthorsAndIllustrators/ContributorDetail.aspx?CId=11820

Homeward Bound

I’m surprised at how often the universe finds just the right home for adopted kids. Sometimes it seems like those little boys and girls were meant to come to their forever family from the beginning, and just had a brief detour in the meantime. Three of my kids were fortunate enough to go to a great preschool program at the university nearby, and one of their favorite teachers, amazing with small people and meant to be a mom if anyone was, had a long struggle finding the boy who would be her son. There were bumps and bruises and heartbreaking moments along the way, but they finally met the boy they’d been waiting years for. And he was obviously supposed to be theirs. He could not have looked more like a combination of the two of them if he had been engineered in a lab (which they had already tried to no avail). In fact, years later they got a surprise bio-baby--and she looked like someone else’s kid. Funny how that works. One of my cousins is an import--but sometimes I have to be reminded of that. I forget that she came from somewhere else because she fits so well here. Sassy, brassy, chatty gal? Yep, she’s ours. Whoever or whatever is pulling the strings out there knows what they’re doing. In Melissa Lagonegro’s Home, Stinky Home, Lilo and Stitch try to find just the right family for their pungent friend. And they do. But I bet the universe helped.

http://www.amazon.com/Home-Stinky-Stitch-Reading-Level/dp/0736422404

http://www.jacketflap.com/persondetail.asp?person=109806

No Problem

When I was a student, I wasn’t any less outspoken than I am now…so, sometimes my instructors and I, um, disagreed. Usually, it wasn’t anything more than a spirited philosophical exchange (which as a teacher I can appreciate because at least it means someone is listening), but once or twice (or maybe three or four times) the disagreement went a bit further than I would have thought wise had I thought about it ahead of time at all. One such encounter ended with me leaving the class because I knew the teacher and I would never be able to see eye-to-eye and I never risk good grades. The course was a Philosophy class where the teacher was a ‘60s throwback who didn’t shower or change his Hawaiian shirt after spending time in his herbariffic van--and who decided it would be a better world if we never told children “no,” to avoid crushing their little spirits. Having had three children of my own and being very certain that appropriate boundaries are good things, I vocalized my resistance to such a world. Which did not sit well with Timothy Leary. So, we parted ways. When author David Shannon was a boy, he apparently fantasized about a world with no “no” as well. He even wrote a baby book about it--that his mom found many years later and he turned into real book called No, David! Seeing it from the kid perspective, I realize that “no” is no fun. But sometimes it’s necessary.

http://www.amazon.com/No-David-Shannon/dp/0590930028

http://www.scholastic.com/titles/nodavid/davidshannon.htm

No-Slumber Parties

My students were leading a small group workshop activity the other night, and they had decided to use the old sleepover stand-by “Light as a feather, stiff as a board” as an example of teamwork. It was a good idea, in theory, but I found myself thinking about Ouija boards and not falling asleep first and ending up a bra in the freezer victim. I didn’t even know I had deep-seated slumber party baggage. Great. One more thing. Remember sleepovers? You were always excited about the idea of getting a bunch of friends together, eating junk food, watching movies, staying up late and giggling long past lights out. Then, reality sank in and the actuality of the slumber party could never quite match the fantasy. I remember spending at least part of every sleepover wishing that I could go home without risking social censure. Especially when the scary stuff started. You know, scary stuff like “Bloody Mary” in the mirror and some combination of terrifying ghost stories. I never liked that part. And it always seemed like somebody wouldn’t be satisfied until the last teenager found the last bloody hook and the last severed head fell off the last unribboned neck. Truly creepy and not much fun. In Disney’s Pixar Toy Story Storybook Collection, the story “Toys That Go Bump In The Night” tells about what the gang does while Andy is gone for the night. And ghost stories are on the agenda. Why does it always happen that way?

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4057344

Worth A Thousand Words

I am a picture fiend. Even before cell phones had cameras, I carried a camera around with me at all times to take hundreds of snapshots a year--and that was back in the days of film. When Keilana was eight weeks old, she had been professionally photographed six times. One of my students used my on-line picture posting to do the math, and came up with this astounding figure: In her first year of life, Scarlett had her picture taken ten thousand times. That’s one thousand times ten. I told you, I’m fixated. I thought it would get better when I got a digital camera three years ago and could use the technology to raise my standards for pictures of my kids--keeping only the perfect ones and discarding the weird face or out-off-focus shots we used to be stuck with. Nice try. I have found what happens now is that I take exponentially more pictures, but can’t discard any of them. Even if I’ve managed to catch only my child’s blurry elbow, it’s still one of my very favorite elbows ever and I want to be able to look at it whenever I choose. Besides, their elbow will never be that age again. Disturbing, isn’t it? Another consequence of my addiction is that my kids become junior photographers very early on. Connor could take professional-looking shots by four and Scarlett is catching up fast. In Gary Soto’s Snapshots from the Wedding, Maya shows off her skills. They aren’t half bad.

http://www.amazon.com/Snapshots-Wedding-Paperstar-Book-Gary/dp/0698117522

http://www.garysoto.com/bio.html

There's A Storm Brewing

Connor came here with a short fuse and an easily-tripped emotion lever. He would be sunny as a summer day, ramp up without warning, lose it and then be irretrievable. I had to anticipate meal times, because if he came up to hungry and did not immediately have something in his mouth traveling to his belly, he could choke to death gargling something delicious and filling five seconds later and never calm down enough to swallow. Sometimes he would be so strongly in the grip of an inner emotion storm that he couldn’t express himself clearly or logically. Keilana once infuriated him to the point of sputtering fury and all he managed to blurt out was, “Cowboy head! Flomp!” Hilarious, right? But, poor baby! Even with the understanding that boys tend to lag far behind girls in emotional skills, it became increasingly obvious as he grew that Connor needed intensive training for recognizing and navigating his feelings in a healthy and productive way. And it worked pretty well. When he was still a little guy, he could pick up on subtleties of emotion in facial expressions he saw in magazines or on television better than many adults, and certainly better than most boys his age. He developed a real compassionate side that connected him to others in a sweet way. In Constance Allen’s Happy and Sad, Grouchy and Glad, the Sesame Street gang run the gamut of emotions through the book. Pshaw! Connor could do that in a commercial break.

http://www.amazon.com/Happy-Grouchy-Glad-Sesame-Street/dp/1403736081

http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Constance_Allen

So Tempting

When it comes to not having your nice stuff completely destroyed by small people, there are basically two types of parents: the removers and the repeaters. Some parents (and I am definitely in this camp) just do not feel like fighting the natural destructo whirlwind that is children, and so removing anything you cannot bear to lose is the fallback position. For the other parents (and they are usually the type with a shoes off in the house policy), some force of nature has endowed them with the strength and patience to repeat “Don’t touch that” five million times a day. I am decidedly not one of these people. It has just always seemed simpler to me to remove the temptation in the first place. I once asked the mom of one of my childhood friends how she and her husband had managed such healthy and drama-free relationships with all of their children. She said that their parenting philosophy was pretty straight-forward: save “no” for the really big stuff--drugs, booze, sex--and have a pretty relaxed attitude about just about everything else. From what I could see, it worked like gangbusters and I have remembered that conversation for thirty years. It has gotten me through some tough parent times, but you have to continually re-evaluate and revise your methods. In Nancy White Carlstrom’s Better Not Get Wet, Jesse Bear, I think they should stop giving him stuff that sprays water if they want him to stay dry. It’s a no-brainer. Duh.

P.S. Happy Earth Day, Rhys! Welcome!

http://www.amazon.com/Better-Not-Get-Jesse-Bear/dp/0689810555

http://www.nancywhitecarlstrom.com/meet.html

Apology Accepted

There’s a part in Erich Segal’s Love Story where young lover Oliver has really messed up and hurt his beloved Jennifer. He runs all over town searching for her in every place he can think of, but finally gives up and goes home--to find Jenny on the doorstep with no keys to get out of the cold. When he tries to apologize, she stops him by saying that “love means never having to say you’re sorry.” It was a line that caught the national imagination and quickly became part of the popular culture. Now, Love Story is my very most favorite book and I have read it so many times that at one point I had the first five pages memorized word-for-word, but I think that sentiment, while noble, is complete fantasy. And I know at least one other person agrees with me because I once saw a bumper sticker proclaiming, “Love means having to say you’re sorry every five minutes.” Which is funny. And a lot closer to reality. But “I’m sorry” is a tricky game--it may get you out of hot water temporarily, but is meaningless if it doesn’t influence your behavior in the future. I tell my children that “sorry” means feeling badly for what you’ve done AND that you won’t do it again. I think that applies to everyone, not just kids. In Gina and Mercer Mayer’s I’m Sorry, Little Critter finds out that apologizing is important, but sorry doesn’t fix everything. Words to live by.

http://www.amazon.com/Sorry-Mercer-Mayers-Little-Critter/dp/0895777819

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

http://www.randomhouse.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=44835

Puppy Power

The poor, scruffy thing was terrified. We watched in horror as she crossed the busy highway, and then tried to corral her to check for identification. Other than a tattered collar with no tag, she appeared to be completely abandoned. As a mom with three kids, two jobs, a deployed husband, a rented duplex, and a new, untrained German shepherd puppy, I had no desire to bring more beings in need of caretaking into my life. But I couldn’t just leave her there. She was dirty with matted fur, but the look she gave me was one of such sorrow and desperation, I couldn’t stop myself from hefting her into my car. We gave her some food, water and a cozy place to sleep that night, but since rescued dogs know instinctively who has saved them, I woke up in the morning with her bad breath on the usually-empty pillow next to me. She was a fan for life. We searched diligently for her owners, but it appeared she was alone in the world and, thus, ours. We named her Chica and tried to bathe her. When she’d been with us awhile, someone pointed out her pudgy tummy and floated the notion that there might be puppies in our future. Dear Lord. And puppies there were. Four of them in my closet one night. They were adorable, but good grief. In Ruth Lerner Perle’s Puppies Are Coming, Minnie is getting some pups--but she’s way more excited about it than I was.

http://www.amazon.com/Puppies-coming-Minnie-friends-collection/dp/1563261103

http://www.librarything.com/author/perleruthlerner

Under The Sea

Because I was a young, single mom with some time on my hands and passionate ideals, Keilana had never seen anything on television until she was two years old. Obviously, things have, um, evolved over the years, but I was very committed to the no-boob tube philosophy then and watching Keilana experience a television set for the first time was probably like watching primitive humans discover fire--lots of nervous examination, tentative touching, and guttural noises. She didn’t know what to make of it and couldn’t really get invested in it. Until we got “The Little Mermaid” on VHS. Something about the combination of color, music, and personalities resonated with her. So, we watched “Mernaid,” as only a two year-old can call it, on a pretty constant loop for a long time. We even had to get a new tape when the movie was re-released because our original copy sounded like it was actually underwater. It was easy for grown-ups to get caught up in the adventures of Ariel, too. At least for me. Having loved classic Disney offerings like “Snow White" and “Bambi," and been left disappointed in the recent releases of “Oliver and Company” and “The Black Cauldron,” it was like a breath of fresh animated air to have the mermaid show up. It’s still my favorite and I feel more connected to it than the others. Scarlett is fascinated by “Mervaid” (she’s also two) and we read Disney’s The Little Mermaid storybook with great interest. Gotta love her.

http://www.amazon.com/Disneys-Little-Mermaid-Wonderful-Reading/dp/0717283194

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

Not Your Ordinary Princess

I am hard-wired to be the perfect audience member--if the show captures me, I whole-heartedly suspend disbelief and become part of the action. But I’m not so into realism. I don’t want rough edges, badly-behaved men, or weak women--I get plenty of that in my everyday world. I want fantasy, whimsy, over-the-top action, and all-consuming romance. Which is why I was mesmerized for all three hours of “Titanic” and completely disillusioned by “As Good As It Gets,” where jerk Jack Nicholson gets the girl without having to budge from his thoughtless ways. It’s why I loved “The Expendables,” but did not watch “The Hurt Locker.” And it’s why a chance encounter in an animated flick is one of the most passionate moments on film. Before Disney’s “Pocahontas” showed up, the relationships between handsome princes and rescued damsels were pretty tame--lots of sugar, no spice. And then they chose one who couldn’t be contained in puffy sleeves and ball gowns. From the first time we see her, Pocahontas is strong and brave, no rescue required. When John Smith shows up, he has no idea what he’s getting himself into. Experience tells him he can handle the indigenous population with military might and strategy--but nothing prepares him for glimpsing the proud and beautiful Pocahontas through the waterfall spray for the first time. When their eyes meet at that moment, it takes my breath away. I am fascinated. So, I gladly read Margo Lundell’s adaptation of Pocahontas…and hoped Scarlett will be like her.

http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=184967

http://www.jacketflap.com/persondetail.asp?person=102275

Playing By The Rules

I have one Easter egg hunt memory that has coalesced in my mind to the perfect storm of unfamiliar surroundings, not knowing the rules, and embarrassment. Near Easter one year, I spent the night at a friend’s house with plans to go to a church egg hunt with her family the next morning. As a contribution to the hunt, we spent a couple of hours that night meticulously decorating eggs we knew we couldn’t keep. Which was a strange sensation that I didn’t particularly care for, but you have to grow up sometime, right? So, I carefully dyed each egg knowing some “little” kid would enjoy finding it for their basket in the morning. We started off bright and early the next day, excited for the festivities. I was unused to attending public functions without my mother and felt a bit out of place, even scared. So, I hung back from the action at first. My friend came to me and said she’d found a perfect collection spot for us--which turned out to be all the excess eggs never hidden for the hunt, including those we had decorated. I guess I should have known better, but it seemed fine to gather up our favorites and keep them. But that was a no-no and we got in big trouble and I’m still confused as to why. In Janet Morgan Stoeke’s Minerva Louise and the Colorful Eggs, Minerva doesn’t know what’s going on with the egg-hiding stuff. I know how she feels.

http://www.amazon.com/Minerva-Louise-Colorful-Morgan-Stoeke/dp/0525476334

http://www.janetstoeke.com/

The Power Of Positive Thinking

College-level on-going teacher education is referred to as “flex” credit, requiring that teachers attend outside-the-classroom workshops and activities--about nine hours per semester for part-timers like me. We used to be able to complete “individual activity contracts” which gave us flex time for things we were already doing if they met certain requirements. Since most part-time instructors work multiple jobs, this was a useful program giving us credit for things we were already doing, like community theater performances and volunteering at Special Olympics. But so many people took the contract route that no one was attending the actual seminars anymore--which was hard on the egos of presenters--and we no longer have that option. It’s workshop attendance or nothing. So, I reluctantly go to workshops that have little to do with my actual life--like “The Happiness Project,” where I got to listen to a “laughter yoga” enthusiast wearing Crocs tell how she doesn’t get information from any news source because it disrupts her “priming ritual” for a day’s worth of sheer, manic joy. Good grief. But then a young, bearded guy, who declared everything “Epic!” started to speak. And what he said was interesting. Less than a year earlier he had been stabbed fifteen times by an intruder and lived to tell about it--a miracle he chocks up to positive thinking. Hmmmm. In Louise Fatio’s The Happy Lion, the main guy figures out he already has everything he needs to love his life. I suppose “Epic!” guy would say I do, too.

http://www.amazon.com/Happy-Lion-Louise-Fatio/dp/0375827595

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

The Patch

Since our favorite pumpkin patch decided to close two years ago after twenty consecutive years of family visits, I’ve had a hard time developing a new gourd-growing relationship. I’ve tried new patches and even gave growing my own pumpkins a shot (with no success). Last year, for the first time in my kids’ lives, I didn’t even have the heart to try taking them to a replacement patch. I just couldn’t do it. And now I have guilt over that. Aargh. I liked the old pumpkin patch and I don’t like change. Bad combination when the place you’re used to hangs up their vines and quits. So, not wanting to experience more didn’t-give-my-child-pumpkin-patch-memories angst, I started looking for a new place to get the pumpkins we don’t actually carve, just leave hanging around the porch until they get gross and “disappear.” Coincidentally, I saw a flyer a few months ago advertising a farm tended by a local high school and pinned it to the bulletin board in the kitchen--where I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to it until Halloween loomed mere moments away. The ad promised a “tractor exhibit” and “harvest games” along with “cranberry beans” to go with your plain old pumpkins. So, we went. Where we experienced “nature.“ And Scarlett and Keilana pretended to barf over the pumpkin guts splattered on the ground. Good times. In Norman Stiles Farmer Grover, the blue muppet spends a day on the farm doing gross stuff. But he doesn’t barf.

http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Farmer_Grover_%28book%29

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

As You Like It

In my classes, we often discuss “emergent leadership”--the tendency in groups with no official leader for someone to step up and lead. My more introverted students find that notion uncomfortable, even terrifying. But others, myself included, find intrigue in the idea that we can proactively get or keep a rudderless group on track. Because I am willing to lead, people often assume leadership is the only role I’m interested in. Which is not true. No, really, hear me out. I tend to lead groups because I have very strong preferences for how things should proceed, but if someone else can do the job according to my preferences, I am happy to take a secondary role. Hence, the problem. I have very strong preferences about virtually everything, from big things like politics to small things like toothpaste. And fruit. Orange is my favorite citrus, with lemon a close second, and I dislike lime. I don’t like plums, but love prunes. I prefer red apples, and want all other skinned fruit to be five minutes away from rotting before eating. And I don’t like cherry at all. These kinds of things might explain why no one else will try to lead a group I’m in, but they also came to mind when we read Gallimard Jeunesse and Pascale de Bourgoing’s Fruit. Scarlett loves strawberries, decided the seeds in kiwi look like ants, and was fascinated by the fig page, even though she’s never had one. I guess preferences run in the family.

http://www.amazon.com/Fruit-First-Discovery-Pascale-Bourgoing/dp/0590452339

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

http://www.paperbackswap.com/Pascale-De-Bourgoing/author/

All In A Day's Work

The economy has altered most conversations--budgeting, home ownership, saving for a rainy day--but none so much as the topic of jobs. Getting, keeping, creating, and training for employment is all anybody--politicians, college students, you, your neighbor--can talk or think about these days. But even before the economic shake-up, employment was arguably undergoing its biggest shift since masses of people left the farm and filled the factory: Generation Y joining the workforce. Being considered a Gen Xer myself (although I feel unrepresented by the idea of “slacker”), I often feel smack-dab in the middle of two radically different work philosophies. The workers of my parents’ and grandparents’ time overwhelmingly followed the model in operation since the Industrial Revolution. They got a job, poured thirty years of their souls into it, received their measly token of appreciation at depressing retirement parties, and started getting their inadequate pension checks. My age group has largely done the same but with a lot more education, a little more following our bliss, and, ordinarily, a job change or two. Not so the youngsters. They shun entry-level positions, feel comfortable making what we would consider unreasonable benefit and salary demands, and have quit more jobs than three of us will ever have. It’s a new world, a new economy, and things will never be the same. But, if you’re a big, red dog, you don’t know that. In Norman Bridwell’s Clifford Gets A Job, there’s mayhem, but little angst. I wonder if he has a pension plan.



http://www.amazon.com/Clifford-Gets-Job-Norman-Bridwell/dp/0590442961

http://www.kidsreads.com/authors/au-bridwell-norman.asp

Thought Process

I always find it mystifying when I encounter programs designed to get kids interested in reading. I used to get in trouble all the time for having a book open on my lap in math class. I read by flashlight, by car-dome light, by the weak light that filters into the hallway from the bathroom when bedroom lights have to be turned off. I have an addiction for the written word that impacts every facet of my life, and, in a pinch, I will read just about anything. But there are a handful of writings that have so profoundly affected me, I feel they are part of me. One of the most referenced stories in my personal library is Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”--the tale of a future world where everyone is equal because all the gifted and talented people have been saddled with state-required handicaps to offset their superiority. I read it for the first time as a teenager, and have read it many times since, always with the same effect--a shudder of dread. The worst handicap, in my opinion for obvious reasons, is not sandbags tied to great dancers or hideous masks on the beautiful, but loud, train-of-thought-jarring noises in the earpieces of the intelligent making a coherent thought impossible. Terrifying. Descartes had it right and I’ll add a bit with poetic license: I think, therefore life has meaning. In Dr. Seuss’ inspiring Oh, the Thinks you can Think!, I find the antidote to Vonnegut’s bleak future. I think.

http://www.amazon.com/Thinks-Think-Bright-Early-Board/dp/037585794X

http://www.catinthehat.org/

It's Elementary

For someone so fixated on school that I never left, you’d think I would vividly remember my first day of school. But, I don’t. When I realized that recently, it was a weird sensation because I remember everything. Well, everything about sentimental stuff…like the first day of school. I remember very clearly what the kindergarten room looked like--with its big windows, kid-sized bathroom stalls, cubbies, and rows of desks--but I can’t conjure up the events of the big day when I finally got to go and do the one thing I had dreamed about all my life until then. Strange. I can recall all my babies’ academic debuts. Keilana in her ponytails and denim dress waiting by the little tree out front, impatient for the time to pass. Connor not realizing that school hours are not negotiable and walking home alone when he got bored. Addison waving us off with an impatient shooing motion so she could get back to rocking the spring-based race car in the play area to its extreme range of motion while the little boy riding shotgun clung on for his life. And soon, all too soon, it will be Scarlett’s turn. We play school now and she loads her “pack pack” with all the necessities of life--binkies, crackers, a disc from her Elmo computer, and some dried PlayDoh--but nothing quite matches up to the real thing. In Robert Kraus’ Spider’s First Day At School, a little arachnid learns the ropes…and the slide…and the swings…and the…

http://www.amazon.com/Spiders-First-Day-at-School/dp/0590410911

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