Picky eaters and creeping outside comfort zones

In our household, Rosie continues to limit her food choices the most. The only two meats she'll eat are white-meat chicken (no skin) and bacon. While she eats several vegetables, for some reason lately she's been eliminating fruits (won't eat bananas and says the canteloupe doesn't taste right—could be an out-of-season thing)? If we let her make the decisions, she would be eating starches all day, every day; her favorites are cereal, pasta, rice, chips, and breads. Thankfully, she will eat several kinds of easy-to-pack nuts and beans. I'm still struggling to assemble lunches for her that she will finish.

I'm counting this as a small victory: the two foods she's added to her favorites list in the past month are sugar snap peas and yaki-nori. While the nori has been reserved as a dinner-only treat, the pea pods are very easy to pack into her lunches. A newly beloved toy purchase (courtesy Monkeyrotica) may have been an inspiration behind the fascination with peapods:

Dash, on the other hand, has developed a taste for daifuku mochi, and wants to eat the tasty Japanese treats with every meal. I'm *not* NOT encouraging this at all, but those darned things are pretty hard to locate in this area. There aren't any Japanese groceries nearby and the ethnically Asian (mostly Korean-run) markets that we do have appear to have biases against Japanese goods and don't carry them. Monkeyrotica and Grandma Ikiko have found the treats in the outskirts of Prince George's County somewhere, and bless them. 

Overall, we are still at parenting-fail mode in terms of cooking one main course at dinner that everyone will eat. It seems to work for some families, but it's not happening here. Dinner last night was delicious lamb-burgers for Monkeyrotica and me, breakfast sausages for Dash, and chicken breast for Rosie. Everyone ate the broccoli, carrots, and french fries, so that was a winner, right?

Tell me about the food struggles you have with your kids in the comments!

WTF are CogAT and NNAT2 tests?

Back in October or perhaps November, a note came home in Rosie's school folder among many other papers, homework, books, etc. I recall scanning it and without paying any attention to the context, read this statement, "WEDNESDAY: Be sure your child gets a full night's sleep and a good breakfast Thursday morning!!" Thinking it was good advice in any situation, I made arrangements for thorough sleeping and eating to happen. Later on, I learned that her second-grade class was being tested for academic abilities, with results to be compiled and distributed in months to come.

Months later, Rosie's results are in. And they are just that, numbers, percentages, bar charts, with no context. The way they are completely devoid of context appears most carefully contrived, in fact. Even the online information about CogAT and NNAT2 is vague, from Wikipedia:

The Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT, CAT) is a K–12 assessment designed to measure students’ learned reasoning abilities in the three areas most linked to academic success in school: Verbal, Quantitative and Nonverbal. Although its primary goal is to assess students’ reasoning abilities, CogAT can also provide predicted achievement scores when administered with the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills.

CogAT is also often used to help educators make student placement decisions, especially when selecting students for Gifted and Talented programs. [<--- my italics—aha, a clue!]

Soooo, as a parent, do I need to do anything? While I'm not going to report Rosie's numbers on this post, I will say that she was rated "high-average." Is this just a test for educators to discuss with other educators? There's a note in 6-point type (read: fine print) at the bottom that states, "If you need assistance with score interpretation, please contact your child's teacher." Given a recent communication from the school's vice principal, the school is being contacted by many confused parents! From Mr. F:

Due to an overwhelming number of emails and phone calls regarding the screening process for the Full-Time Level IV Advanced Academics Program, Ms. S and I will be hosting two information sessions next Tuesday afternoon, 1/25/11 from 4:15–4:45 & 5:00–5:30.  

Another clue: "Level IV AAP" is the new, more-PC term for "gifted & talented" program. I may find my answer at this meeting, I guess. I'm going and will find out WTF they're talking about.

Getting my hands dirty, at long last

Graphic designers use computers all day long at work, which is a reality that I wouldn't have easily anticipated when coming out of school oh so many years ago. When I chose the graphic design field, it was because it promised a desirable balance of tech and traditional art/illustration. Even in the first decade of my career, there were still light tables, drafting tables and markers within our offices. Not so anymore. Along the way, illustrating by hand became more or less economically unfeasible—on the computer it's so much faster and accurate, easier to make revisions, and much less messy. Customers these days have no idea what to think if presented with a preliminary sketch (I learned the hard way a few years ago), they expect to see a "final" illustration and still be able to easily and quickly make major revisions to it.

I miss traditional drawing media and the hand-eye precision it requires, the happy accidents and discoveries you make along the way. I'm resolving to not eliminate creating original works of art from my personal work, at the very least; and, I'm trying something new, a technique outside my comfort zone. I'm taking a semester-long, studio art class to learn screenprinting. Thinking back, the last art class I'd taken that was more than a day-or-two-long workshop was back in 1997. Yikes.

After attending one of those workshops a while back, a hands-on screenprinting demo, I was excited by how easy it seemed to create a lovely product from a simple stencil. Revved with enthusiasm, I asked for a screenprinting kit as a birthday gift. I gave it a try at home and was quickly intimidated by the kit. It came with too few instructions and several mysterious solvents and chemicals. There were too many opportunities to fail without any knowledge base to troubleshoot from. Even though I tried to invite some printing-experienced friends over to help me get over my hang-ups, the craft-dates didn't materialize; I had screenprinting paralysis. The kit started to gather dust.

My first class was this past Monday night. The instructor gave us some history of screenprinting, having herself learned the technique in its American heyday back in the late '60s, early '70s. We started out with cutting a simple design out of freezer paper, attaching the freezer paper to a screen, and printing our stencil using a mix of three or more colors across the screen. We got to the business of creating our designs rather late in the class, but thankfully, I'd brought a sketchbook that had some drawings in it from when I was designing Dash's raccoon doll and was able to get something down on paper quickly. Wrapping my head around making a stencil with the appropriate negative and positive cutouts for my sketch was a little tough that late at night (the class is from 7 to 10 p.m.), but I managed it. I finished seven raccoon prints and cleaned everything up just after class officially ended. (Photos to come—sorry, we were so pressed for time, I wasn't able to get my camera-phone out with paint-splattered fingers.)

I have homework for next week's class—coming up with a high-contrast grayscale (or straight black and white) design to print out on a transparency. Looking forward to it!

Somehow, in NOLA...

In my dream, it was like I was just waking up, except I was driving. It was morning, but still dark; the car clock said 2:25. Strange, brightly colored lights and signage were all around me, was I at an airport? I tried to recall the last thing I could from the night before... I was leaving Philadelphia for home, but was I alone then? I was alone now.

While I navigated the airport exits—departures, arrivals, parking decks—I looked at the interior of car I was driving. Unfamiliar. In, fact, there was nothing in the car except me and what I was wearing. No purse, no luggage, just clean new car smell. A rental? Then the fact that I had no wallet hit me and with the realization, as always, a wall of panic. No ID, no access; no credit cards, no money. And where am I? The airport signage didn't give location data.

I hastily parked the car somewhere on a side street and got out. There were many pedestrians, heading swiftly to their destinations. I stopped a couple, asked them, where are we? Louisiana, they said, near New Orleans. I reeled. I want to go to New Orleans! But, with my family, not like this. Where were they? What day is it? Was someone waiting for me somewhere? Where is my wallet, my cell phone? I need to make a call.

And just like that, my dream ended. I awakened to the sound of a child opening his door, feet padding the hallway, heading for the bathroom.
........

The night before, I was dining with friends and the subject of vacations had come up. We discussed a springtime trip to Philadelphia and a summer trip to New Orleans. See how those destinations featured above? We haven't worked out the plans yet, though Monkeyrotica has been bugging me to book travel and hotels for weeks.

Rather than trepidation about the destinations, I think this dream is about my feelings on the unsettled logistics of the trip. How will we get there? Driving? Flying? Will we have enough funds to support a single vacation, let alone two?

My Totoro Plush Is Done!

Almost three months ago, Rosie and Dash enjoyed watching Toy Story 3 on video. The one thing in the movie that stuck with Dash more than all else was that little Bonnie had a Totoro doll in her toy collection. Having never seen Totoro in doll-form before, but immensely adoring him from the fantastic Hayao Miyazaki film, My Neighbor Totoro, Dash wanted one. Badly. He knew I was capable of making dolls, and started asking me to make him a Totoro doll—and continued asking persistently, for weeks. I finally sketched it out, bought fabric and started at the beginning of November. Here's the initial sketch:

I cut out the parts, got a little burnt-out on the hand-sewing/embroidery necessary for the boomerangs on the belly and the smile, and put it aside for a few weeks after getting a little more than this far:

At the beginning of December, I'd sewn on and stuffed the belly circle, stitched the arms up and painted the pupils (with black & white nail polish) onto the buttons. All that was left was making the claws, the ears, stitching it all together and stuffing, so this weekend, I decided to finish it. Here's the final result:

And this is the happiest boy ever.

This movie is kakashka.

"Kakashka!" from Dash's review of Inception.

We were watching Inception at home, with the kids, knowing that they would in all likelihood not be able to understand what on earth was going on. To be clear, we weren't planning for this to be a family feature, but once the film started, our movie-loving kids just gravitated to the rec room. If you haven't seen Inception, you may have at least heard that it's a DENSE, multilayered movie. It takes brainpower to follow the plot, necessary to recall all the prior twists as the next ones occur, to know which dream or non-reality the players are experiencing.

From Roger Ebert's blog review:

"...the viewer of "Inception" is adrift in time and experience. We can never even be quite sure what the relationship between dream time and real time is. The hero explains that you can never remember the beginning of a dream, and that dreams that seem to cover hours may only last a short time. Yes, but you don't know that when you're dreaming. And what if you're inside another man's dream? How does your dream time-sync with his? What do you really know?"

While Rosie quietly took the movie in, maybe or perhaps not understanding the plot's obtuse angles, Dash had an opinion part-way through the film:

"Mommy, this movie is kakashka." 

I could have taken the word as imaginative, as Dash makes up words all the time, but there was something definite about his tone. So I asked, "Kakashka? What does that mean, Dash?"

"It's Russian for poop."

Before I even went to the place where I wondered how he knew this, I boggled. Inception was so unfollowable and impenetrable for five-year-old Dash that he had to describe how awful it was IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE.

(Back story on the Russian: Dash's table-mate at school, Katya, had just returned from a 3-week family trip to Russia. Katya's older brother, Andrei, had been sharing some slang he picked up, passing it on to Dash through Katya.)

We all sat through to the end—Monkeyrotica and I thoroughly enjoying the mental workouts in the screenplay, the excellent special effects, and the wonderful actors—but Dash didn't waver from his first impression: pure murky poop.

The importance of being cozy

Dash's favorite word, above all others at the moment, is COZY. He likes to be cozy, wear cozy clothes, and have fluffy, cozy stuffed animals with names like "puffy," "furry," and "fuzzy" around him. When he's "cozy," he becomes an adorable caricature of a happy little boy. He curls up into a ball, a sweet smile shows up on his face (pictured above), he might start bouncing around a bit, and emits giggles or what seems to him to be happy-baby noises, i.e., "hoo-hoo, hee-hee, aaaaah!"

If his big sister Rosie is nearby, this cozy activity will jump-start her maternal and dramatic instincts. She rushes over, announces, "Oh, what a cute little baby!" and gives him hugs or pretends to rock him to sleep; she might stage a baby-feeding session or cover him with more blankets or toys. Clearly, this is the type of attention he's looking for! They both soak it up and symbiotically enjoy the baby-play.

At five years old and a few days scant of eight, this is all pretend play, of course. Rosie has quite the flair for improvisational drama while Dash loves to channel memories of being a baby. Some days, I'll find him in a melancholy, nostalgic mood, pining for his "baby things." When I try to pin him down on what baby thing he misses, he won't really be able to specifically say. He just knows that he had "baby things" and that we gave them away. I'm pretty sure what he's missing is the Nuk. He was awfully attached to it, and while we weaned him off two years ago, he probably has retained faded memories of something he once had that made him feel comforted.

For now, he'll just have to stick with cozy.

I dreamt about a puppy last night

Courtesy www.dailypuppy.com

In my dream, I was already in a pet store (or the breeder's home?) and had the puppy in my arms. The puppy had soft ginger and white fur with a freckled nose, and the breed name "Springer Spaniel" popped into my head. I was having a conversation with the owner that, in my memory of it, was a little muddled—probably about the health and personality of the dog—but in my dream-heart, I was already in love and was bringing it home.

For some reason, while I was standing there still holding the puppy and thinking about how much fun it would have in my fenced back yard and with my kids, someone started closing up shop, turning the lights out on me. I started yelling out questions like, "Wait! Do I need a crate for this dog? Can I get some puppy food?" and was answered, "No, this breed doesn't need to be crated. And, we're closed. Go to PetSmart for your supplies."

As I was walking out the door (and becoming more awake) reality was striking me. I owned a dog! I was going to put a dog in my car! I was going to take a dog home to Monkeyrotica, who doesn't want a dog. Where was the dog going to sleep? Would the dog get along with my parrot? Would it try to eat my parrot? Around this time, I woke up.

But the memory of a soft, warm, lovely, playful puppy remained with me through the morning.

Portrait of Weegee

I just found this photo of our pet parrot floating in my camera's photo archive. Rosie must have taken it, as Weegee looks totally comfortable; he has the opposite reaction with the boys. Nice lighting and expression!

I think I'll need a clone come November 13th.

(Stricken text taken from Leonard's tattoos in the 2000 movie Memento.)

Never answer the phone. How will I keep track of all this?

Fact 1. Male. November 13th is Rosie's 8th birthday. She has invited a select group of her friends, mostly from her 2nd-grade classroom, to go ice skating (thankfully, outside the home).

Fact 2. White. The ice skating party falls squarely over the lunch hour, so I'll be catering lunch as well as cake for the party. Solution: Pizza delivery services will help with this one, and I've asked a party guest's parent to make the cake.

Fact 3. First Name: John or James. Dash's karate class and his dance class will both be overlapped by the birthday party. Solution: We will do a make-up class later on for karate and a parent of one of Dash's playmates will deliver him to dance; Monkeyrotica will pick Dash up.

Fact 4. Last Name G___. Monkeyrotica has a dental appointment that overlaps Dash's karate and the beginning of Rosalie's party. Um, yep. And I scheduled it, I sure did.

Fact 5. Drug Dealer. Monkeyrotica's birthday is tomorrow (if you read my blog and you feel like it, wish him a happy day on 11/5!) and we are ALSO having a party for him (with his select guests) later in the afternoon on November 13th (yeah! two parties on the same day!!). Monkey will be prepping barbecue for it starting the night before, before and after the dental appointment, and all the way up till his party. I'll drop Dash off at his playmate's house and head to Rosie's party after he leaves for the dentist and will be back to help two hours before it starts.

Fact 6. Car License Number SG137IU. Um, I think I need to take Friday, Nov. 12th off! I'll be delivering birthday cupcakes to Rosie's classroom that afternoon and will very likely need the whole day to get the house ready and obtain supplies for the weekend.

I'm disciplined and organized. I use habit and routine to make my life possible. Between now and then, I'm planning to unpack the basement, make Rosie and Dash each a Totoro doll (already started), and maintain the entire house in a presentable state for guests. I keep telling myself:

"I can fit it all in! Of course, it'll all work out in the end and everyone will have a great time."

I'll be repeating that mantra in my head all the way until 11/14.

On my way to the polling place...

I voted yesterday afternoon, at the third polling place I'd visited in the day. No, I wasn't confused or lost, but it was a little irritating that you can't vote at the place that's closest or most convenient to you. We must vote at the polling place that has been arbitrarily assigned to residents based on some arcane boundary system. Whatever.

When I dropped the kids off at SACC (which was all-day, due to the school closures for teacher conferences and voting), I hit the first polling place. I actually asked the elections officials there if I could get my vote in while I was there and was denied (irk!). A few hours later, I had a mid-morning teacher conference concerning Rosie's progress at the second polling place. As I entered, a couple of cheerful leafleters attempted to press their documents into my hands, but I had to convince them that I was not there to vote. Although the conferences were running behind schedule and I had about 45 minutes to kill, I didn't bother checking if I could get my vote at this location—those elections people are pretty hardcore.

The conference itself was glowing as always with Mrs. Clark (she LURVES Rosie with all her heart). Mrs. Clark told me things I'd heard before, such as Rosie is a unique thinker, not cookie-cutter, takes projects in directions none of the other kids think of; she blew all the other kids out of the way on her spelling placement test at the beginning of the year, placing into 3rd or 4th grade level words (e.g., she spelled alliteration correctly!); and is one of the best class artists along with her friend Janna. The only negatives she received were with math and organization skills along with a negative-positive comment that Rosie has really blossomed socially with her peers to the point that she's too chummy and chatty, getting distracted by the socializing.

That afternoon, I almost considered not voting just out of irritation with being thwarted twice, but then couched going to vote a different way in my mind. I hadn't had any exercise yet, so I would bike to the polling place! It was really just three miles round trip, so nothing much really, but upon arrival at the middle school's polling place (third of the day!), I was surprised by something. There were absolutely no, none, zilch, nada bike racks there. I circumnavigated the entire school grounds and baseball field and found not a one. When I asked the group standing outside the voting entrance where the racks were, they were confused. One girl who attended the school informed me that there were no racks because the middle schoolers WERE NOT ALLOWED TO WALK OR RIDE THEIR BIKES TO SCHOOL.

I was astounded. This just went to another level of annoyance with me. The reason for this, I was told, was that the wide-but-only two lane road outside the school was deemed "too busy." There were sidewalks and bike paths leading up to the school—I had just ridden on or by them. The road itself was very wide, plenty of room for cyclists. What on earth? Are they concerned that the buses would run the biking children down? I'm sorry, but no wonder our kids are so unhealthy. They must be driven everywhere, have so much homework that they can't do after school activities, and probably have trouble with maintaining endurance during the activities they do choose. I've googled information for this school and can't find anything prohibiting walking/biking online. Thankfully, my kids won't be attending this school (and I am planning to allow them to walk or bike), but I'm hoping that someone is willing to be an activist to do something to get the school to change this policy. There should be a way to make the area "safer" if that is the concern? Crazy.

And also, I voted.

Ouija boards: paranormal or group-think?

Okay, this isn't really going to be a philosophical/academic discussion of Ouija boards complete with expert references, bibliography, or any such thing. Just personal anecdotes, and my usual half-assed conclusions (feel free to add your own thoughts/links/stories in the comments!). I hadn't thought about the Ouija game in a very long time, honestly; but the Halloween spirit and friends' recent tweets about "soulmates" got me remembering playing it as a youngster.

In case you avoided the entire Ouija experience, here is how Wikipedia describes the game:

A Ouija board (possibly from the French and German words for "yes", oui and ja,^[1] and usually pronounced /ˈwiːdʒiː/ in English), also known as a spirit board or talking board, is a flat board marked with letters, numbers, and other symbols, supposedly used to communicate with any spirits. It uses a planchette (small heart-shaped piece of wood) or movable indicator to indicate the spirit's message by spelling it out on the board during a séance. The fingers of the séance participants are placed on the planchette, which then moves about the board to spell out words or become physically manifest.

It was the 70s, and against her better judgment, I'm certain, my mom bought my sister and me a Ouija board. I recall relentless begging leading up to the purchase as well as personally logging many hours in the "occult" area of the Young Adult section of our local library. I wanted to know if ghosts could talk to me. I'd dutifully try to clear my mind before playing and will the spirits to come, to tell us what they knew from beyond. We'd play with friends down in our low-lit basement, asking questions of the "spirits" such as how they died, what their names were, and where they were buried. We would ask about our own futures to see if they knew what might happen in our own lives. I recall getting very creeped out, with thrilling goosebumps and chills if one of us was told that she would die young or some such thing. Sometimes, I was convinced that the spirits were pretty self-centered, only wanted to talk about themselves, refusing to answer our queries. At a family gathering, we mentioned to an extremely superstitious aunt (or very in tune with ghosts—family legend is that her house was terrifyingly haunted) that we had the game, she told us to "Never, ever touch it again! Take it and burn it when you get home! It will bring the devil to find you."

Over time, however, it seemed more likely that my strong-willed buddies were just moving the "planchette" (I never called it that, but see above) to wherever they wanted it to go, fulfilling their questions with answers they wanted. During one later game when my friends and I were getting boy-crazy, we were all asking questions about the name of who we would eventually marry. My friends were coming up with nice sounding, common guys' names, like Steve or Mark or Michael. I was hoping for a similar fortune when my turn came. Instead, the planchette kept hitting letters that didn't make any sense together, all kinds of vowels and just one consonant. It didn't look like any name I'd heard before! I gave up on the Ouija board after that. Stupid thing. Couldn't even give me a straight answer, like it had given my friends. The game languished in a closet after that, probably sold in a yard sale.

On to the soulmates part: What was the name that the spirits had come up with for my husband to be? I don't recall clearly, as a few decades have passed, but I think the letters went something like:

(Y) (A) (K) (Y) (I) (U) (O)

Damned ghosts couldn't spell. My darling husband's name is Akio.

Rosie's Self Portrait

I'm so impressed with this self portrait that Rosie drew in her 2nd-grade art class! Mrs. N, the art teacher, was telling me how wonderful it was before I had a chance to see it, and now that I've had a peek, I agree wholeheartedly. With just a felt-tip pen and crayons, she drew a beautiful scene of herself and our family pet parrot, Weegee. I love her beatific expression with a slight smile. She's set herself in her (imaginarily pink) room, holding Weegee next to his cage (that *does* have yellow, purple, and brown toys in it). In her right hand, she's holding his pelleted food, since she's now in charge of feeding him. Around her neck is a bow, tied with her purple cape's strings, and the magenta dress with a red heart she's wearing is adorable. These articles of clothing are imaginary, although she does have vinyl butterfly decals on the walls of her room!

Her school has been kind enough to offer to reproduce this drawing on mugs, t-shirts, or journals. Hard to resist—I'll be purchasing several items as gifts!

What's Rosie's favorite school subject?

Art!

Just like me, I adored my grade-school art teacher, Mrs. Sereno.

Li'l Pumpkinhead

At the pumpkin patch today we bought two of the wartiest pumpkins we could find. Warty old witches (or similar variant) to come!

Who's Going to the Inaugural Science & Engineering Expo? Oct 23-24, Nat'l Mall

After talking with Rosie's 2nd grade teacher yesterday about how Rosie is academically soaring right now, absorbing everything, blossoming incredibly, and should be enrolled in extracurricular learning opportunities like foreign languages, music, etc., I was poking around online looking for lesson plans for piano (yes, I'm finally attempting this at home with Rosie, who seems interested and enthusiastic).

Instead, I stumbled on details for the first ever Science & Engineering Festival on the Mall, just two weekends away. I am entranced by the feats of science and engineering and highly encourage my kids to develop wonder and inquisitiveness about how things work in the physical world. Exposure to these exhibits might create some sparks with Rosie and Dash (who will be interested in the weapons and aircraft components)—just the thing!

I pulled these details from the USA Science & Engineering Festival's blog:

Date: Saturday, October 23, 2010 through Sunday, October 24, 2010
Location: National Mall, Tent #102 (in front of the Capitol Reflecting Pool)
Time: 10:00 AM to 5:30 PM
Cost: Free and open to all
Age Range: Open to all

Saturday, October 23
10:00 The Mouse that Roared (Roain Egnor)
10:30 Reverse Engineer Your Brain (Louis Scheffner)
11:00 Nobel Purpose: NPR's Joe Palca Interviews John Mather (Nobel Prize Physics)
11:30 The Scoop on CSI: Separating Fact From Fiction (Marvin Schecter and CSI Miami)
12:15 Be a Bone Detective (Diane France)
1:00 Nobel Purpose: NPR's Joe Palca Interviews John Mather (Nobel Prize Physics)
2:00 The Engineering Behind Disney's Magic (Lanny Smoot)
2:30 Bon Appétit: Better Eating through Chemistry
3:00 Be a Bone Detective (Diane France)
3:30 The Scoop on CSI: Separating Fact From Fiction (Marvin Schecter and CSI Miami)
4:00 A: It's a Jeopardy-Playing Supercomputer. Q: What is IBM's "Watson?"

Sunday, October 24
10:00 Disney's TRON: Legacy Captured Live on Stage
11:00 Nobel Purpose: Joe Palca interviews Vincent Cerf (Draper Prize)
11:30 The Scoop on CSI: Separating Fact From Fiction (Marvin Schecter and CSI Miami)
12:15 Be a Bone Detective (Diane France)
1:00 Nobel Purpose: Joe Palca interviews Peter Agre (Nobel Prize Chemistry)
2:00 What's the Buzz?: The Status of Pollinators in North America (May Berenbaum)
2:30 A: It's a Jeopardy-Playing Supercomputer. Q: What is IBM's "Watson?"
3:00 Be a Bone Detective (Diane France)
3:30 The Scoop on CSI: Separating Fact From Fiction (Marvin Schecter and CSI Miami)
4:00 The Engineering Behind Disney's Magic (Lanny Smoot)

I know Rosie and Dash will love some of this stuff! Anyone planning to go?

Secretariat Review

Lately, Monkeyrotica and I have been digging through the recesses of our brains, recalling some of our favorite childhood movies to share with our kids. While I watched Secretariat at a screening last week, I was transported back to the 1970s, when I was growing up, and viewed a familiar time packed with feminist issues I can recall clearly, as well as a world I never knew—the world of horse breeding and racing. The authentic feel (awesomely bad 70s wardrobes, among many other great details) of this movie and the inspiring story that unfolds brought today and forty years ago together for me, and I want to share with you and my kids.

Penny Chenery Tweedy (Diane Lane) was a highly educated woman, in a time when many women were in the first generation in their families to go to college. And, as did many women of her time, she found that along with marriage and children, having her own career outside the home was fraught with barriers. My own mother joined the National Organization of Women and AAUW to vent her frustrations with having a career thwarted by family life (she was told to quit as she became visibly pregnant). Penny Tweedy may not have sought out those support groups in 1969—she had an outwardly comfortable life as a stay at home mother of four and wife to a successful lawyer husband. What became apparent was that after the death of her mother, her father's decline into dementia would quickly take their family's horse farm. Unless she drew upon her education—from learning the ropes as a child as well as her university degree—and saved her father's empire, the family horse farm and the many generations of husbandry, care, and prestige built upon it would fail. The horses were of no interest to the men in her life (her university professor brother or her husband); they just wanted her home, in her place, caring for the kids.

She was raised to run that business. She wanted it, she knew how to do it, and she could make all the right decisions. If only someone she loved believed in her. Well, nope, that wasn't going to happen; see ya, bro & hubby! If only she could hire people to believe in her. YES! Her father's house manager, a crusty horse trainer (John Malkovich), and a gentle stable hand would take that on. And history was made.

Secretariat. Penny Tweedy's only non-fair-weather friend. Everyone else in her life abandoned her when the going got rough.

I will take my kids to this movie. I want to see it again and add it to our collection of movies, I enjoyed it so much. What I want to see more than anything else, beyond the edge-of-my-seat, heart-thumpingly exciting horse racing, beyond watching Penny rock on with her bad self, telling off her competitors and creditors (all high-powered men), is John Malkovich. I want to see pink-suited, plaid-hatted, crusty old horse trainer Malkovich swearing in Disney-curses and in stilted French, dancing while celebrating the horse that he helped train to victory beyond belief.

School year scheduling

We've made several new scheduling transitions for the 2010 school year thus far, to move toward balancing the rocky mountain/valley that is our work-life, especially now that both kids are in public school. The changes all arose from my need to adjust my work hours, because getting home after 6:30 p.m. every night just was draining me, with only 90 minutes to spend with my family before they were all in bed for the night.

What we had been doing:
When Rosie started Kindergarten two years ago we made some big changes to make the timing work, first with Monkeyrotica changing his work schedule, arriving super-early and leaving super-early (and as a result, exhausted and going to bed the same time as the kids). Grandma S came to our house every morning for the past two school years to help Rosie get ready for school while I took Dash to daycare. The first year and a half, Grandma S also came after school to pick up Rosie from the bus stop, but when we moved Dash to a pre-K closer to home this past January, Monkey was able to make the bus in time.

What's the latest twist? 
Monkey still has his early-early workday, but I'm dropping both kids off at morning-care (a.k.a. school-age child-care or SACC). At work, I've shortened my days slightly to arrive home in time for the bus because I've decided that the after-school time between 4-6 pm are golden hours of family engagement time. Even this early in the school year, the kids are bringing home homework, which is best done while they have enough energy to complete it, not after dinner when they're starting to get bleary and surly. Also, many age-specific after-school activities, like sports clubs, scouts, art classes and the like are scheduled right when school ends, so if I want to get them to an activity, I need to be around. Monkey's already said that due to his complete disdain for all things sport-related, he's not schlepping kids to sports training. And the other activity that the kids were missing out on? Playing with the neighborhood kids. Today, after school, Rosalie will have her 2nd ever playdate with one of the little girls who lives one block over. Why weren't these happening earlier? Let's just say, out of sight, out of mind——by not being home earlier and visibly available, my kids just weren't socializing with the neighborhood kids (even though there are a dozens of them in their age groups). Starting this week, I'll be home every afternoon at 4! Yay!

Results: More family time and kids activities (and homework).
The activities are already racking up. Monday is after-school soccer for both and Wednesday is tap class (just Rosie). I want to get them both into an art class when it comes available, and maybe into track club. Neither of them have shown any interest in scouting, which is fine—that's a major time-suck what with all of the parent-volunteer work. On Saturdays we also have back-to-back Japanese calligraphy (Rosie) and karate (Dash), then Dash takes ballet in the afternoon. For each, that's currently 3 activities. Not totally overscheduled yet, right? There are still four free days in the week for family walks, bike rides, and outdoor fun! And, then just maybe I can fit in some crafting or personal activities, huh?

Back to the homework, however. Dash was out of school with a fever for three days last week, and I was completely blindsided by the nine make-up assignments that were sent home with him on Friday. I didn't even notice they were in his backpack until Sunday night after they were in bed! I'm becoming aware that we haven't really established our home as a place of learning, because the children truly struggle with the assignments. Groaning, flopping, distractions, sidetrips, stalling—Dash has been trying the works. This morning, I realized that I had a trick in my back pocket: their morning care. The kids are supervised by licensed childcare professionals for 1.5 hours before their bus arrives and they have a homework table. SCORE! I had no idea that I'd be calling on them so soon, but we were getting nowhere at home. Out of nine assignments, Dash scribbled out one yesterday, fighting it the whole time. Today, sitting down with the staff at SACC, Dash was working away on his homework even before I'd left the room. Warms my stressed-out, stretched-thin-mom's heart.

I'm feeling really good about all these schedule decisions! Which helps a great deal, because our basement flooded AGAIN last week and we have to replace the flooring, with three to four expensive days of repairs and installation ahead of us.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

It's Monkeyrotica's and my 13th anniversary today (or yesterday, because I got distracted by sick boy and forgot to hit the publish button), and true to style, we didn't really plan to do anything on the day of to celebrate. To help keep the romance away, Dash has a fever and I stayed home to take care of him, so we are really putting things off until our anniversary date night this coming Saturday night at Restaurant Eve, where we have spent several anniversaries in past years.

We are terrible at getting each other special-occasion gifts. Seriously, neither of us likes surprises and wasting savings on frivolities, so we typically get practical items and check with each other several times before purchasing. This year (our gifts are rarely "must have, evening-of-calendar-date") we are looking at chandeliers. The requirements, including no dangling jewels or fussy beaded curtains:

1. replace this despised chandelier:








2. no obvious chains/brass
3. no dustcatching glass cups
4. an artistic/modern look
5. warm & inviting
6. nothing too Victorian or busy
7. just kooky enough

Some chandeliers that have caught my eye on the web so far:

The minimalist George Kovacs chandelier
(chains: +10/dustcatching: +8/artistic:+5/inviting:-2/kooky:0=21)::





















The champagne bottle chandelier
(chains:+3/dustcatching: +3/artistic:+3/inviting:+8/kooky:+3=20):















The popular IKEA MASKROS chandelier
(chains: +8/dustcatching: -5/artistic:+5/inviting:+10/kooky:+8=26):





















The wine bottle chandelier
(chains:-3/dustcatching: +2/artistic:+3/inviting:+5/kooky:+5=12):



















The Cthulhu (Medusa?) chandelier (by Murano Imports)
(chains: +8/dustcatching: -5/artistic:+5/inviting:0/kooky:+8=16):






















According to my scale ratings, the IKEA MASKROS lighting is the winner, but I'll have to let Monkey weigh in. I'm expecting he'll pick an item from the George Kovacs line. Kovacs is quite the prolific lighting designer.

UPDATE:

I almost forgot about one of the most awesome wine-jug chandeliers EVAR! The Carlo Rossi wine jug chandelier! From The World's Best Ever blog:

Flash Cards for Kid's Lunches

I was reading an article on Asha Dornfest's Parent Hacks blog asking parents to discuss a topic dear to my heart: How to get your child to eat more of her school lunch?

Dash just started Kindergarten and while we don't yet know if he will be too busy socializing to eat his lunch (likely!), we do know that Rosie has brought home many an uneaten lunch. We have taken some steps to keep this from happening, but it's just frustrating as a parent to find that your lovingly packed lunches get ignored or discarded. I was reading through the insightful comments and saw some parents were recommending that your child pack his own lunch. My first reaction was, forget that! My kids are too young/irresponsible/unmotivated and then I stopped myself.

While they might not yet be able to physically pack their lunches, they can certainly get involved! Since Rosie eats about 50 foods total (not including variations on chocolate), we have already been to a nutritionist. I have detailed lists [OCD-alert] of her foods broken down by their nutrient content. I decided that my best option would be to make flash cards with delicious-looking images of the foods on them (because Dash is not reading—yet)!

I took my lists, my graphic design skillz (practically applied—I'm just making usable items here), and made some decisions on how to structure the cards for the kids' use. Then, I stayed late at work to print them out. Pictured is one of three pages from my layout. While the food pyramid at USDA's website is helpful, the group-breakdowns weren't set up for balancing a lunch for kids. There is a lot of information there, go look if you want.

Here's my structure. I set up five categories for the kids to pick one or two each (with guidance that they needed to have at least one from EACH number group), color-coded them, and added where they fell in the USDA Groups set up:

1. main course items, purple; my main course foods have the most protein, come from the USDA's meat/beans/nuts/seeds group and will help to keep my kids' energy levels high.
2. fruits and veggies high in vitamins, red for fruit and green for vegetables; many of these foods are raw, just how my kids like them.
3. side items, orange; are often from the grains group, but might also be a vegetable with a lower vitamin count.
4. snack foods, white; treat items with higher sugar, mostly chocolate-flavored for my kids (#4 will be first to get eliminated if a previous lunch has #1-3 come home uneaten!).
5. drinks, blue; my kids drink white or chocolate milk or water, no juices, so easy pickins here.
   

The kids were super-excited about the cards last night and wanted everything, but remember where this post started? They weren't finishing what they were getting. In fact, Rosie hadn't eaten her main course from the prior day (edamame, which is a favorite), so she didn't get a #4 today. Here's what they picked for today's lunches, with a quick addition of pizza for Dash:



**DISCLAIMER** These cards are for my personal use; I am not selling them and many of the images I used are FPO and not licensed. Were I to sell them, I would either shoot new images or legitimately purchase the photo licenses from the image owners.