Saluting people of courage from 2007

We are spending the New Year's holiday in Pennsylvania with our dear friends Tatiana and Tony, and their son Dario.

Tonight, we are saluting people who exhibited great courage in 2007, and also those we know who have made good positive changes in their lives, and can serve as inspiring examples for us and our children.

First, Benazir Bhutto, of course.

And Oscar Elias Biscet, who in November was honored in absentia by President Bush with the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work to promote freedom in Cuba.

And the people of Venezuela who rejected Chavez's "reforms."

And most of the American soldiers stationed in the Middle East.

And Garry Kasparov.

And the Ladies in White in Cuba.

A big toast will go to Alejandro Ripoll Paez, Tatiana's brother, who this year escaped Cuba on his 12th try, on a speedboat to Mexico, and is now in Miami, working to bring his wife and children.

We are also celebrating those we know and love who took the initiative this year to make their lives better, to be true to themselves, which sometimes involves a good deal of courage:

My friend Harold, who left the priesthood this year after realizing that he didn't believe Catholicism is true.

My friend Patrick, who decided to have six months of chemotherapy to reduce the chance that his colon cancer will return.

My friend Donald, who left a job that wasn't right for him.

And, Tatiana, who, after teaching college Spanish for five years as an adjunct, talked herself into the Master's program in language and culture at Villanova, where she currently teaches Spanish.

All of these people inspire me.

Anyone have any other additions to this list?

A terrible day

I found out about Benazir Bhutto's assassination when I was on the treadmill this morning at the YMCA.

I am sad, and afraid.

If you think about the world, how many people of true courage can you really name? For me, Benazir Bhutto has headed the list. Find me someone braver than her.

One of my fears is that people here in the West won't make the connection -- you know who they are, the ones who claim that we should somehow try to make nicey-nice with all of the hostile wackos and dictatorships in the world -- won't recognize that the people who did this are the crazies whom we have to fight. They'd be happy to do it HERE, damn it. To YOUR kids. To YOUR friends.

I am so afraid that without Bhutto's restraining sobriety, that part of the world will begin (or accelerate, depending on your perspective) a terrible downward spiral. What chance do all of the oppressed women in the Islamic nations have now? (I'm sure many of them are getting the message: Take off the chador, babe, and you'll just SEE what happens to you.)

I want to go back to yesterday.

Biggest hits

The biggest hits this morning were

1) The Barbie 2-in-1 Party Plane and Cruise Ship


As I suspected, this was Numero Uno by far. I'm so glad I got it for Ella. Not only did she LET me play with it, she ASKED me to play with it. I got to be Hairstylist Barbie and teenaged daughter Barbie. Ella was both Mom Barbie and Dad Boybie. (We had gotten a male Barbie a few years ago, not Ken, but Blaine, the next guy, and Madison promptly named him Boybie. So Boybie he has remained.)

Madison was the cruise attendant Barbie and Captain. The Captain was a Prince Barbie, now demoted to both Pilot and Captain, depending on whether we're playing Cruise or Plane Flight.

Even better, it all folds up into a neat package for storage.

2) The Bike

Madison wanted to ride it in the house.

3) The Sled.

They're now out sledding in Ellison Park.

I'm going to take a walk by myself in Corbett's Glen across the street. Then I'm going to sew a comforter cover for our bed, because what other day of the year do I have the luxury of sitting around the house and watching America's Test Kitchen (of which I've taped about six episodes) and sew. I'm really tired of supplementing our comforter with an old twin Winnie the Pooh blanket, it needs a nice cover.

Madison came up to me this morning as I was eating chocolate-covered pretzels and reading Washington's Crossing (appropriate day to read about that) by David Hackett Fischer. She slipped her arms around my neck and whispered, "Thanks for the bike, Mom. I knew when we saw it in Target that you'd find a way to get it."

I said, "Hey, Santa brought that, you're not supposed to thank ME for any Christmas gifts, that's the point, they're from Santa."

"I know," she said, "but I wanted to thank you anyway, it's really great and you should know that I say thank you."

Because that's just the kind of kid she is.


Later: We always listen to WXXI, the local classical music station, on Christmas. And they just played a really strange piece which was a combination of "The Little Drummer Boy" and Ravel's "Bolero." I can't decide whether it works.

Division by Zero

Madison, and, lately, as a result of Madison's interest, Ella, has taken to looking for ways to combine the numbers on the digital clocks on the kitchen stove and on the VCR. For example, at 11:31, she'll suddenly say: "One plus one plus one equals three!" and at 11:38, she'll say: "One plus one, cubed, equals 8! The two of them are now always alert to ways to successfully combine the numbers on the screen. I taught neither of them to do this, although I will admit that I always did it as a kid, too. (It's how I learned that if the digits in two different numbers add up to the same thing, the difference between them will always be divisible by 9. E.g., 95-77=18.)

At 2:00 this afternoon, Madison asked what it would mean to divide a number by zero. "What would be 2 divided by 0?" I explained that it was meaningless, that you can think of what it would mean to divide a number into 2 pieces or 4 pieces or 1 piece but not into 0 pieces."

"That's scary," she said.

"What's scary?" I asked.

"That it could be meaningless. I wish I hadn't asked the question. I wish I could dial back my life to before I asked the question and not ask it."

She felt a little better when, a few minutes later, David said that some people interpreted the answer to division by 0 as infinity. He took her through the reasoning: What if you divided something by 1/2? 1/4? 1/100? She saw how it got bigger and bigger the smaller fraction you divided something by, and how if you got small enough of a fraction you get such a big number that it approaches infinity.

Ella can't help but read

I was talking with Laura earlier this fall about possibly using The Writing Road to Reading because I was feeling a little discouraged about Ella's progress or lack thereof. Everyday reading was such an effort for Ella that she didn't really try when she didn't have to for school. But Laura told me that part of the effect of WRTR is that soon Ella wouldn't be able to help reading.

I was skeptical.

But, I can see now that the corner has been turned. Ella can't help reading. She got a new computer game, Barbie as the Island Princess, for Lightbulb Day, and in wandering around through it, she *just reads*. Not the long explanations, mind you, I guess they seem daunting, but everyday words and phrases and sentences that pop up now and again. They just seem to go into her head effortlessly. It's been a long time since Ella got a new game and so the difference in that is startling.

Of course, as with everything, it's impossible to tell whether this was just primarily "her time" or if this is the cause. But I'm really pleased. Thanks, Laura.

And Madison still can't help spelling, even more so in the last week. It's as though she can suddenly see the words broken apart in her head, and can relate them verbally. What was once just a picture on the page that she read effortlessly is something that now has logical (or illogical) parts. And I'm pretty sure that this is due to WRTR, as I've never heard of a magic "click" moment for spelling that happens naturally, and it didn't seem like Madison was primed for one of these moments, anyway. We deliberately took a right turn in spelling with WRTR, and it brought her brain some new skills that she wasn't heading toward on her own.

Just a picture-taking time of year, I guess

We got our Christmas tree today (the latest we've ever gone before Christmas without one).



Later in the afternoon, we hung our ornaments. Each year, we get three ornaments from somewhere we travel: One for us, one for Madison, and one for Ella. David and I started out with some cable cars from San Francisco in 1995. By the time each of them is 18, they'll have their own "starter set" to move to their own house. Madison said that we already have a lot. I pointed out that over the next 10 years before she's 18 we'll have 30 more.

"Or 40," she pointed out. "If you guys split up."

After a long, surprised pause, we came to understand that she meant if David and I get separate sets of ornaments.

Then there was more clowning around.



And this was my favorite:

Karate kids move up a belt

They had a very nice belt ceremony at Martial Arts America, where Madison and Ella go for karate twice per week. I really like how they do things there. The instructors take it seriously, but not deadly seriously. The girls really have improved in the last year.

My camera was not cooperating very well, but I got some okay shots.



Here is Madison doing the kata with her group:



I was able to crop the others out of Ella's shot:

Happy Lightbulb Day!

Tonight's the Big Night.



Hope your Lightbulb Day is bright!

Shopping is the best therapy

I’m sure I’m not alone as a parent in thinking that my kids are so wonderful that I’d like to get them anything they want, everything they want, in fact. And yet…what about the stuff that I wish they didn’t want?

Ella has been hankering for one of those big plastic Barbie sets, you know, the ones with all of the little plastic accessories that really HURT when they get crunched by a bare foot…the ones that look like a bunch of cheap pink plastic junk rather than some of those great toys that last forever that I wrote about in the article on KOA.

Well, I’ve been remembering, lately, a Christmastime when I was about six, and how my parents refused to get anything Barbie-ish other than the actual doll, telling me it was a lot of expensive and trendy junk that would never last. Remember the Barbie Country Camper? I remember it vividly. I wanted that Camper like nobody’s business. And I realized, as I was shopping this week, that I shouldn’t remember something like that vividly. Or, at least, my daughter shouldn't. What I'm recalling, of course, is not that Santa never brought the Barbie Country Camper, but the dismissiveness with which my father treated me desire for it.

I had these visions of Ella, 32 years down the road, complaining to some therapist about how her mom would stomp on her aesthetic sensibilities by refusing to get the pink plastic stuff she craved. So, right there in Toys Backwards-R Us tonight, I told my own good taste to hold its tongue (so to speak). I loaded into my cart the 2007 equivalent of the Barbie Country Camper: the Barbie Party Plane & Ship 2-in-1 Playset. With music! And lights! It all seemed so right.

And I bet, come Tuesday, that Ella will even let me play, too.

Birds and bees

Explained sex and birth control to the girls over lunch today, in response to Ella's question about whether you can prevent a pregnancy from occurring. Kicked in menstruation, too, as part of the explanation of how different birth control medicines work. Why would anyone want to have sex if they didn't want to make a baby? they asked. It feels good, I said.

"But not for kids," said Madison.

"Right."

"For kids it would hurt."

"Yes. You have to grow a lot for things to be the right shape and size."

Their reaction was engaged interest in the facts. Certainly nothing like Madison's initial response when she asked how the sperm got to the egg (when she was five, I think), which was "EEEEEEEW." This discussion was infinitely more satisfying than that one, at least for the parent.

Nate the Great

It's a Nate the Great morning here in the Ross house. Ella has already done her Nate the Great reading (she does about 5-6 pages; Nate the Great is a perfect struggling level for her--difficult, but she can get it), and we're having pancakes to celebrate.

Not fish pancakes, though.


Madison is profoundly hooked on Trixie Belden. This is the third day. She is on Book 3. Good thing the library had some.


Mostly finished the shopping last night, YES! Need to get a "big" present for Ella, though. Madison's big present was a bike.

Spelling

I really think the Writing Road to Reading program is having a big effect on Madison's spelling. I'm a little bit off-program on WRTR, in that nowadays we basically review the rules, and then plunge right in annotating the words they want to spell.

For example, this morning, Ella wrote out her Christmas List. Then, I wrote it out big and properly, and together, we went syllable by syllable and annotated it. They like this, particularly Madison.

The effect that it's been having lately on Madison is that she is, a bit annoyingly, often SPELLING when you ask her a question. But she's spelling properly, and fast.

"It's time to get your karate uniform on, Madison."

"I - space - K-N-O-W - space - T-H-A-T - period."

I don't fuss about how annoying that is, except when she does it to Ella's face, JUST to be annoying, because she knows Ella can't process the verbal spelling as fast as Madison has been doing it.

So this is all good news.

Best thing to do during a blizzard

It's snowing hard outside. This is our backyard.



We decided to make gingerbread houses.



Of course, children fight when they have to work on the same gingerbread house. (This is wisdom from last year.) So I decided to get out the Halloween gingerbread house that we forgot to make at Halloween. Ella is making that one:



She doesn't know about her mustache yet.

Blizzard

Ella just reported to me that the snow is coming from the east, which is very unusual here in Rochester; usually weather comes from the northwest or west. The great weathervane that the girls created went down in the sleet last week, but it would be buried by now anyway. We'll make another soon, because Ella in particular found it so interesting to see which direction the wind was blowing from.

Ella is uncommonly good at orienting herself in space...from the house, she always knows which direction is north, south, east, and west, and is usually able to figure it out when we're out and about, as well. This leads me to think that something about this ability is inborn--I have a really good sense of direction, too, and it just feels like there's some sense I have that I tap into, rather than having developed it intellectually some way. Watching Ella's progress, it seems like she learned this effortlessly and does it naturally; I can tell the difference between things she has worked hard to acquire and things that she can "just do"--and directions are one of those things. I do math spacially, too, and it seems that Ella is the same way.

Since she has this predilection, we've been looking at weather maps online lately, so she can relate her immediate orientation to the map. That's a bit harder for her, but still enjoyable.

Both a good and bad thing, depending on your perspective

I discovered this week that my new KitchenAid Mixer, properly employed, makes Grandma Zydzik's chrusciki recipe with about a thousand percent less effort. And it took a 3-hour job and paired it down to an hour. Worked great for giving to the choir teachers and neighbors. Not so good for my waistline; most of the effort for chrusciki (and the secret to success for this pastry) typically goes into kneading and kneading and KNEADING the dough, which, before I had the mixer, at least shaved off some of the calories. The incredients are: egg yolks, sour cream, flour, sugar, a pinch of salt, and vanilla...shaped into bow ties and deep fried in Crisco, then drenched in powdered sugar.

I would have taken a photo of the chrusciki, but they were gone too fast.

Old family joke (or one that I may have made up 20 or more years ago):

Question: What's the shelf life of chrusciki?
Answer: No one knows, it never lasts long enough to be put back on the shelf.

This is the extent of the Polish heritage that has filtered through (the recipe, not the joke). It's the best part, probably.


Hunkering down for the blizzard today...

Naturalism vs Romanticism

I'm pleased to say that I've been working hard on the book, the first novel of what I hope will be a terrific series for 8-to-12-year-olds. It stars a group of homeschooling kids who live near Powder Mills Park in Pittsford, NY, and who come upon a mysterious treasure chest with even more mysterious contents floating in Irondequoit Creek.

Madison and I have been researching this book for over a year, mostly because it is (or wants to be, let's hope that it works) a romp through classic children's mystery literature, and we've had to read a LOT of it. She reads, she reports, I check out, I write, she reads, and we edit edit edit.

Anyway, I'm in Chapter 9 of what I think will be about 16 chapters. Been humming along, of late, despite being overworked on various dimensions. (My goal is to get it published before May 5, 2009, my 40th birthday.)

Madison and I were talking about the progress today, and she pointed out that this book, like most of the others that she likes, like the Boxcar Children and Nancy Drew, have "perfect" children in them, and that this is perhaps unrealistic.

"No one ever gets into snits," she complained. "And maybe the readers like that better, but I think that's unrealistic. Maybe we should have Karen Rose and Alexander have a fight or something, or have one of them be snotty to their parents."

I talked with her about how novels and movies portray only things that are essential to the plot, rather than peripheral things. "You know people have to go to the bathroom now and again," I explained. "But we never see that, because it's not part of what drives the story along."

"Well, maybe not," she agreed. "But I think maybe we should try to move away from presenting perfect kids, and go for more realistic kids. Maybe kids should be able to relate to our characters rather than want to be like them."

Émile Zola, reincarnated, perhaps?

I took the opportunity to describe how this was actually a big debate in the 19th century, Naturalism vs. Romanticism, and how we've had several representatives of both in our Birthday of the Day (William Blake was recent) in literature, art, and music. She was interested that this all has a name. But I think she was more interested in winning a point, and in having me alter the book to be more realistic. I told her that she should propose whatever she thinks would be good for the book, just let me know.

In other news...

I brought the girls to a new dentist today, a pediatric dentist. Madison really hadn't hit it off with my dentist (at her first visit, when she was 4, she wouldn't open her mouth, and every time thereafter it was a struggle for her to allow stuff to be done inside her mouth...partly a gag reflex and partly a control issue). After the last time when Dr. Parnes seemed a little frustrated with her, I thought maybe a change would do her good.

I asked around and got a glowing recommendation from one of the senseis at karate for this group, which is mostly women. We went this morning, and Madison really hit it off with them. They understood her issues, and worked with them. She pronounced them a vast improvement over "the last guy." Ella, on the other hand, always loves a trip to the dentist, has no problem opening her mouth and chatting up a store. Today, though, she didn't like the taste of the toothpaste (she chose "chocolate mint" flavor from among a vast array) or the feel of the toothbrush so well, and it colored her whole experience. It's good that Madison really likes these folks, because she needs to get her back teeth sealed in a couple of weeks, and she needs to make an orthodontist appointment pronto because her mouth is so crowded. These people don't submit your paperwork to your insurance company for you, but I'm assured they're worth it. Seems to be true.

First boy-talk, ever

Aunt Tamra's Christmas package -- having three boys, she loves to shop for girls' clothes -- arrived this morning. Much squealing ensued. ("Aunt Tamra has really overdone herself this year!" said Ella. I had visions of Tam staying too long in a tanning booth, but I didn't have the heart to correct Ella on the wording.)

"Gee, Ella," said Madison, as Ella put on a denim skirt and denim jacket, both embroidered with colorful flowers. "That's beautiful. That will really attract the boys."

"It will?" said Ella, with a skeptical look on her face. "Do I want it to?"

"Sure, you do," said Madison, cheerfully. "Come on, let's go upstairs and I'll get you looking so good that all of the boys will want to have a date with you right away."

They came down. Ella had her hair brushed (!) and a navy hair band holding it back.

"You look nice," I said.

"Yes," said Madison. "And I did up her eyes and lips really nice, too."

"Oh, really?" I said. "I can't see anything different there."

Without pausing a lick, she replied, "Oh only the boys will be able to notice."

Ah, if she only knew.

I guess I'd better tell David that he'll need to start getting the baseball bat ready.

Update: We're finishing up school for the day, and Madison is pretending to be a boy named Max who is at "real" school, chatting up "Elizabeth" (Ella) in the funniest "deep" voice. I'm gathering that she's doing this so that Ella starts getting experience talking with "guys."

Honestly, I can barely bear to listen, both because it reminds me of exactly how I used to play with my little sister, and how I used to wince at the memories not too many years after we used to engage in the same kind of play-acting. Besides, I'm inclined to think that they're too young to be thinking about this. Maybe they've been picking up this kind of talk at Brownies, or something.

You're the Top

At one point, David and I started using the song "You're the Top" as a good gradual cultural literacy discussion.

Here is a link to the lyrics. We don't sing 'em all, quite. David says that there are several versions.

But we were discussing tonight:

You're the National Gall'ry
You're Garbo's salary
You're cellophane.

David asked if either of them knew what "Garbo's salary" meant. Ella said,

"I think it's kind of a salad-thing that you eat..."

What? Where on earth did she get such an idea? We were perplexed. We couldn't help giggling up a storm.

Snuggling into bed a few minutes later, still a little perturbed at our giggle-fest, she explained it to me.

"Mom, I was thinking of that stuff that you eat. We made some at the cooking class."

Oh oh ooooooh! They made Waldorf Salad at the cooking school. There's a line a little further down in the song:

You're the top!
You're a Waldorf salad.
You're the top!
You're a Berlin ballad.

And what's in a Waldorf salad? Of course, CELERY!

(Although not exactly Garbo's celery.)

Absurd Math

Melissa Wiley's blog gave me this link to

Absurd Math

It's a free online math game in which you travel to an absurd world somewhere in the universe to help save civilization as they know it. It's designed to nurture pre-Algebra skills.

Madison and I played it yesterday morning. She loved it, although she needed my help for some of the math. She got the logic and the "feel" of playing the game within a few episodes.

I really think Raymond would like it, Laura, you should check it out.

Christ, The Messiah runs long

What a weekend it was. Madison had two rehearsals on Saturday for the two concerts on Sunday.

The first concert, at 2pm, was called "OrKIDstra" with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, at the Eastman Theatre. This is a series that the RPO does four or five times per year, special concerts for children. They always sell out. This one was a holiday show featuring "The Polar Express," a musical rendition of Chris Van Allsburg's beautiful book.

You'd think such a thing would be cheesy. In this day and age, what isn't? But it wasn't, it was beautiful. The Bach Children's Chorus combined with the Amadeus Chorale and a great baritone from the Eastman School. The baritone sang the part of the narrator, which was almost exactly just a simple word-for-word rendering of Van Allsburg's book. The choir sang a kind of echo part that was fairly musically complex. All in all, just lovely.

Then afterward we ZOOOOMED across town to a 4 o'clock concert at the Hochstein School of Music & Dance where the choir was doing The Messiah with the Rochester Oratorio Society and the Rochester Chamber Orchestra.

It was long. Really, really, long. I'd forgotten just how long The Messiah is. Two and a half hours. David took Ella home at intermission, it was just too much. And for the last 3/4 of the program, the choir was up there on stage with the the Oratorio Society and the Orchestra.

For 77 kids to have such a rigorous day of concerts, that's asking a lot. I hadn't realized that they'd have to stay up there motionless on the stage for 2 hours. I am pretty sure Madison had not realized it. And some of the younger kids did NOT rise to the occasion. They forgot (or didn't care?) they were up there, and some started whispering. A couple even played some hand game called "chopsticks." It was distracting.

But not MY kid.

No, Madison pretty much sat rigidly at attention, with her face turned toward the conductor. Once, she carefully put a restraining hand on the girl next to her--unfortunately, the girls misbehaving were only a few kids to her left, but otherwise was perfect. Perfect. My little 8-year-old. I was so proud. I know how hard it is not to be distracted by such things. I found myself feeling a bit relieved that there were so few boys in the choir.

At intermission, the choir manager, June Santini (the Great Santini) read the choir the riot act. And they were a lot better behaved in the second half. But the thing is, it's such a LONG piece, and the time between their numbers ran to 45 minutes or more. They'd had a long, hard day, and many of them almost started falling asleep. Lots of yawns. Some slumps. Some chins on hands. Some heads on back of seats.

I watched Madison's face, and it reminded me of this great video we have of her, at about age 1, in her high chair. It's a 3-minute segment of her falling asleep in the high chair, trying not to, jerking her eyes open, and finally succumbing. On the other hand, this 8-year-old has a force of will that the 1-year-old did not. I was so impressed with her keeping herself focused and awake.

The soloists that they had for the four parts were great. The bass was particularly impressive, a guy named Derrick Smith who is a faculty member at Eastman and has sung opera all over the world. I would give a lot to see him do "Porgy," which is apparently one of his roles. The alto soloist, I can't remember her name, is blind, and the kids got to meet her and her guide dog after the performance. Very interesting for them to see her with a Braille score up on stage.

I had a $5 gift card from Target which could only be used yesterday (I know, weird) so after the performance Madison and I went out (alone...which, I can't remember having been able to do with her in the last six years so that was nice) for Indian food and then to Target so she could spend the gift card on whatever she wanted. She spent over 45 minutes carefully going through the options, and finally selected a black-and-white stuffed puppy which she named Pepper.

I told her that she'd earned the three of us a day in which she gets to do anything she wants. So, today is a mental health day. Well, at least, a mental health morning. No school. She and Ella are playing Club Penguin. I get to finish decorating for Christmas, organize the attic, and organize the basement. Then we'll go to their gym-and-swim class, the library, and karate. And then more of doing Whatever Madison Wants.

I kind of wish they weren't so delighted with the No School option. Ah, well, who said my kids were different from any other.

Frost

After Rational Jenn posted an enthusiastic link to my Lightbulb Day post, I got into a little back-and-forth with one of her commenters about whether Robert Frost's poem "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" is about death. I don't think so.

I sought John Enright's opinion, and he has a nice post about it on his blog at
http://john-j-enright.livejournal.com/433810.html

Update: And here, too.

What a crazy idea

Sometimes I think to myself that I'm insane to think that I can run a 1/2 time technology consulting business, 1/2 time web site publishing business, and home school my kids.

Today is one of those days.

12pm and the only education they've had is what David gave them this morning on the Birthday of the Day (Ira Gershwin).

Lightbulb Day's A-Comin'

I thought for this year I'd write up how we celebrate Lightbulb Day and post it on KidsOutAndAbout.com:

http://rochester.kidsoutandabout.com/main-articles/lightbulbday.html

Who knows, maybe it'll catch on.

Concert

The girls had their first (and only, of the season) choir concert together tonight, with both the Bach Children's Chorus and the Mozart Children's Chorus performing. The Greece Choral Society, an adult choir, also sang, and it was a beautiful concert. Thoroughly enjoyable and would have been touching even were my children not in it. The girls were really gratified that our friends Tom and Susan also came; that made it particularly special to them.



The experience of having one's children in the performance is unnervingly unlike not having one's children in the performance. I'm sure David, with his nerves of steel, doesn't experience it this way at all, but for me, it's almost like I'm up there with them. Ella, in the younger chorus, had a distractingly active girl standing next to her during the performance. Well, it was as if I was there with her, up there on the risers, as Ella thought to take hold of the little girl's hand discretely to prevent her from waving it around. I was experiencing what it was like for my six-year-old to have to focus so hard not to be distracted and sing and behave properly, and then summon that little bit of extra maturity to try to calm her neighbor without drawing extra attention.

I am having a hard time explaining what this is like without making it seem like I'm living through my kids in an unhealthy way. And I won't even try to explain how proud I was of them tonight, and how happy I am that they love to do this thing that is so GOOD for them.

Anyway, after their parts were done, then I could relax and enjoy the rest of the performance in a different way.

(Yes, of course I wept. As usual. Discretely.)

Let breakfast go too long

Without enough food, Madison becomes kind of the rebellious proletariat. She goes on a self-righteous revolt against the ruling class.

Ella, on the other hand, becomes the damaged princess. She dissolves into a cut-off-the-nose-to-spite-the-face attitude whereby she's not going to eat if The Help doesn't cater to her every whim.

The Leaves are Buried Under Snow

What do you think? Should I try to scrape them out with the garden rake and put it them in the street to see if the town will still collect them?

The girls and I had raked them three weeks ago into a nice jumping pile, but then it has been always too wet to jump.

And now they're here:


Although you can't see them because they're under the snow.

Pretty sure I shouldn't leave them there until spring.

Maybe I'll solve this after I solve the burst-pipe-issue in the attic bathroom.

House photos

I know that all five of you are just dying to see how the rearranged living room and church room look. Actually, when I'm lacking energy (as I often did this week because it was so busy), I just walk over and look at the living room, or bring the laptop into the Church Room now. What Tatiana did really made a difference.

We call this the Church Room because the last owners took the covered patio that was off the back of the living room and enclosed it, using the salvaged wood and stained glass from a church that was being torn down. The TV is now in back of me. We love this room, Christian symbols and all. I hate the carpet, but as the floor underneath is just flagstone, even this carpet is pretty cold. We'll have to solve that problem before we yank it up.



Don't you think that it's somehow appropriate that a bunch of atheists should have a Church Room? And now that I put the space heater in it, it's cozy.

This is the view from the living room with my back to the fireplace, looking out to the front of the house. It is a very long living room. My dream is to have the wall to the left and the wall in front covered with bookshelves, floor to ceiling. To do it right seems to be pricey, I have to track down this Menonite guy we met in the spring who does this kind of thing and see how he prices it.



This is the view of our Rumford fireplace (original to the house). The Church Room is out the door to the left. I vow to bake bread in the upper oven this year. We'll see how that works.

Forecast

Today:

Snow.


Tomorrow:
Snow and freezing rain.

Monday:
Several inches of snow. And wind.

Tuesday:
Lake-effect snow.

Wednesday:
Cold with snow developing (developing?!).

Thursday:
Snow showers.

Welcome to Rochester! I guess it's December.

We are ready with the neat snow ruler that Tom and Susan gave us for our housewarming present last year. Only up here in the Great White North can a housewarming present be a snow ruler.



Here is a photo of our cool new handmade weather measuring instruments:

The weathervane works particularly well; that's the little thing on the right that we made with straws and some oak tag; unfortunately the arrow blends in with the background so it's hard to see in the photo. We watched it whip around yesterday as a windy period came in, then it settled down to be consistently from the northwest or west. It's pointing west-northwest in the photo. Ella has a real knack for directions; she was always able to know which direction it was pointing. They found it interesting that the arrow points *into* the wind rather than away from it.