Ella-Bunny

Ella loves bunnies. I called her my "baby bunny" when she was a baby because she was born near Easter, and even at 7 she still has it as a kind of persona. One of her nicknames is Ella-Bunny.

Our friend Sue, Japanese Literature Professor extraordinaire and accomplished seamstress, took note of this when she and her family were visiting on Monday. When she got home, she boxed up an old costume of her son's and sent it over. Ella is in raptures.

Resources for teaching writing

Erika Dreifus, over at her blog The Practicing Writer, has posted a link to some terrific articles about how to teach imaginative writing. Her blog post is at http://practicing-writing.blogspot.com/2008/05/friday-find-teaching-resources-from.html. Definitely worth checking out...the articles gave me some lovely lesson ideas the girls will love.

Lurching through life

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. We've been very busy with end-of-the-year stuff.

There are a couple of items I've been meaning to post about, challenges (though not severe challenges) with the girls. It's always easier to find the time to post about delightful accomplishments than things that puzzle me.

Madison lurches.

She's always lurched, to some extent. She was never what you'd call graceful; whereas Ella somehow seems to have built-in grace, Madison never has. You could always see the difference when they would make up a dance: Ella was a ballerina, Madison would look like she was stumbling through a demented hokey-pokey no matter what the background music. Madison never lacked for enthusiasm, though, and that's what made it all both better and worse. Better, because she is clearly happy and one doesn't want to stomp on her glee...but worse, because the more enthusiastic she is, the more ungainly she becomes, and the harder it is to watch her, especially in comparison with Ella.

I have always been convinced that Madison is klutzy because she has so much going on upstairs that she is focused inward rather than outward. But lately, as she nears the age of nine and is starting to grow, it's struck David and me that she has to start to get a grip on her body. She's been getting minorly hurt a lot more often, and lurching into other people and tripping them up. She doesn't just get up from the table, she hurls herself up from the table in pursuit of whereever she's going next. It's a standing family joke that the house attacks Madison -- corners, the floor, doors, furniture...she can hurt herself just trying to stand still somewhere. When she holds your hand as you're walking, YOU become her prop, the thing that is holding her upright. Instead of walking down- or upstairs, she winds her body around the banister and kind of slides toward her destination.

So we have lately undertaken to try to make Madison more conscious of her body. It's one thing for a little little kid never to stop talking and never to seem as though she is in control of her body...that can be kind of cute. But it's getting less cute. You'd think a year and a half of karate would have helped. Not much. She's not bad at karate--but that's when she's actually focused on what her body is supposed to be doing, so it works ok. But it's as though she reserves all of her focus for Tuesday and Thursday evenings, and she's free from constraint the rest of the time.

So we've tried to be positive about it. She *never* remembers not to lurch, so we've taken to reminding her at times before she's about to move. She'll be about to get up from the table, and I'll remind her, "Elbows, knees, and spine." "Like a princess, love." "You're going to have to use your own spine to hold yourself up, honey, or you're going to fall."

We have noticed it kind of -- KIND OF -- starting to work, after about two weeks of calling after her ping-ponging little body, "Stop lurching!" I'm not sure, though, what kind of effect we've had, or whether we even ought to do this at all. Maybe we should do it later? Maybe there are more important things we should worry about instead? Maybe we should be using a different approach? Maybe she's just a klutz and we should embrace her for "who she is"? Sigh.

Looking at adults in a new light

I know I haven't been writing much, lately. Sunday was Madison's very last concert of the year, and she had a bunch of rehearsals for it, so it was busy.

We have had an interesting experience with the conductor of the Rochester Chamber Orchestra, with whom the Bach Children's Chorus had this last concert, and two others at Christmas. His name is David Fetler and he is a stooped, crabby, grouchy old man whom nobody likes...but he organizes and conducts great concerts. I personally haven't forgiven him since the Christmas concert with the BCC, the RCO, and the Greece Choral Society: In the middle of one piece, he abruptly stopped the piece, turned around, and informed the audience with disdain in his voice that "the soloist didn't turn the page correctly" and then turned around and re-started. That poor young soprano (who looked about college-age) started the piece again. One can only imagine the kind of self-control it took to be able to sing beautifully to a packed crowd under those circumstances, but she managed.

Anyway, Dr. Fetler presents a very interesting case for Madison: An adult, who is very good at what he does, yet is kind of awful as a human. Someone whom everyone quietly dislikes, and *it's not just kids* who dislike him and whom he tries to intimidate, but adults as well (except for Derrick Smith, the bass soloist, who is not only extremely well-known around Rochester on the opera/choral scene and a professor at The Eastman School, but is also a 6-foot-6 heavy black guy...him, Fetler respects).

So Madison is having a unique experience as a kid, one I never had: Her parents are telling her that an adult, who is to be respected (and, heck, obeyed) in one context, is overall really kind of crummy. We indulge Fetler in his idiosyncrasies because he produces something lovely that we want, but at the same time we keep our distance from him personally, because we're better people. Rosses don't behave that way. And Madison will grow up knowing not only that Rosses don't behave like Fetler, but that she shouldn't take it personally if Fetler treats her disrespectfully...that if that happens, it's HIS problem, not hers. It will help her keep her internal cool.

My friend Anne's mom used to say, "Consider the source," when Anne was in junior high school and someone would say something catty or nasty. I was never taught to "consider the source" -- I didn't have the skills to do so. Analyzing other kids or adults and considering whether their competence justified taking them seriously just wasn't part of my framework. I went through a lot of angst as a kid and as a young adult before philosophy and reality straightened my spine, because I didn't understand this at all.

Free Will vs. Determinism

So, okay, Madison has always been interested in philosophy and religion starting from when she had just turned five. And we have wonderful talks about all kinds of issues...she sometimes tells us to start talking about these issues so she can listen. But we haven't given her any books on it or anything, because, well, we can't find anything that's at her level and interest, and RIGHT. That's okay, she has her fill with the discussions. She has recently decided that she's going to hold out for the logical possibility of there being some kind of supreme being or prime mover, for the simple reason that we can't disprove it. So, fine, she doesn't quite hold with our argument that there is no logical need to prove a negative, that the burden of proof is on the person making the positive argument. I'm fine with that, she's just as happy trying to be an individual at some degree of philosophical opposition with her parents.

But it all still doesn't explain how at age 8 she has--just this weekend--constructed a position of determinism, without ever having heard of it. And, because determinism has given her an "answer" for EVERYTHING, she's delighted, and, gosh darn it, she's *sticking with it* until it fails her. An introspective experience of choices, of free will? No problem, says Madison. It's an illusion. The future is GOING to happen, it IS the future, there is just ONE future, there can't be multiple futures. And, DAD, you do concede that determinism is true BUT FOR THE PRESENCE OF HUMAN BEINGS, right, so it's not so much of a stretch to include human beings in our concept of a predetermined future.

I took the girls to Chili's for lunch after Madison's show for her homeschool musical theater class (I refuse to write "musical theatre") this morning. And we were talking over this issue through much of lunch.

"Anything else I can do for you?" asked the waiter as we were winding up.

"Well, you can weigh in on the free will vs. determinism debate," I replied. I nodded at Madison. "She's holding out for determinism."

Without missing a beat, he replied, "Well, I believe in free will myself," he said. "But you should really read the Sylvia Browne books. She's a great writer, she's really influenced me."

"Oh? I don't know her," I said.

"She's a great psychic," he replied. "She explains it all really well."

The look on Madison's face was priceless.

Birthday of the Day: Katharine Hepburn, 1907-2003

Today's Birthday of the Day is Katharine Hepburn, who is always fun to read about. Good person, active mind and tongue, hard-working, principled. Even her scandal, her love affair with Spencer Tracy, is admirable. She was also mostly home-schooled! She'd be 101 today if she hadn't died in 2003. Even so: a long active life mostly to be admired.

Poetry is happening here

From Ella this morning:

Birthdays, birthdays

Birthdays, birthdays are so much fun.
There's fun and laughter for everyone.



It's all John Enright's fault.

Mending drawers and the like

I know this is ridiculous to post, but I had this actual accomplishment today: I mended a kitchen drawer before it really broke. I know what you're thinking. No, this post won't get any more profound than it seems right now. Feel free to go read something worthwhile.

I noticed that part of the front panel of the drawer was starting to pull away from the sides. It would only be a matter of time before it splintered on the right side entirely, which would require actual skill to fix. David and I both have a pathetic history of house mending: We usually wait until something is seriously broken before fixing it, and even then we often think of a way around it. (His sock drawer on the dresser broke before we left Virginia, so we promptly...let it go until it was really unusable, emptied out that drawer, and used the nightstand drawer for socks. And, don't even ask about the bathroom sink. That's fixed now, though, thanks to Steve the plumber.)

Anyway, I said to myself today, thinking of the unmended drawer in Ella's room: "No! Enough! I'm going to FIX it, damn it!" And I left the girls to their own educational devices (they promptly decided to play Killer Bunnies) while I fetched the drill and a long screw, carefully drilled a new hole, and after a moment of power-screwing...voila. A nice, tight drawer that is not going to break any time soon.

I feel powerful. I hear Mission Impossible music playing in the background. I may go stalk Ella's dresser.

Ella disenchanted

I never thought I'd have to be concerned about Ella, especially not at this age. It's Madison's passions that lead her down dark paths, not my sunny Ella. But Ella's skittishness has been ramped up even more, and I'm just not sure what to do. Yesterday, she didn't want me to leave her at Gym and Swim at the Y. So I said, OK, I'll sit here until you feel comfortable. That usually works. So there I was, sitting on a log outside the Y on a beautiful warm sunny spring day, watching a bunch of kids practice lacrosse, but wishing I could get on with my five errands that I'd planned for this stretch of time. Ella, though, couldn't hack it, even with me there; about 10 minutes in, she burst into tears, and so I took her out and took her with me.

I think, unfortunately, I was instrumental in causing this yesterday...if I'd just told her no problem, I'm delighted just to watch for the whole 2 hours, then she'd have been fine. But I'd told her that I had errands to run for at least some of that time, so could she please wave at me when it was ok to go? I think that was too much pressure and uncertainty.

And then, she couldn't even go to dance yesterday afternoon, this new dance class that she loves. She and Madison have dance and karate at the same time, about a mile and a half apart. I used to drop Madison, drop Ella, run to the grocery store, pick up Madison, pick up Ella (dance class lasts 15 minutes longer than karate). You know, some "me" time to get something done quickly that takes longer when you're lugging kids. But recently I've had to stay with Ella for most of her class, leave for 10 minutes to pick up Madison, and come back and get Ella.

And then as of a few weeks ago it's gotten worse; Ella has begged me to stay for the whole dance class and not to leave her. Madison doesn't mind reading a book for 20 minutes after karate, waiting for us, but it still takes 20 minutes out of my end-of-the-workday work with clients or my dinner-making time. Then I thought it was getting a little better, and last week I told Ella that I was going to leave a little early to whirl around and pick up Madison before Ella was done. But she ran after me as I left to get Madison, and dragged me back in to class, pleading with me not to go...fortunately we'd planned for this, and Madison had brought her book and was ok with waiting. I'm afraid I came back in with a bit of a frustrated expression. Ella was very embarrassed by her behavior and apologetic all week, which really made me regret my frustration.

But then, yesterday, she didn't want to go to dance AT ALL. Given her behavior earlier in the day at Gym and Swim, I thought I wouldn't push it, but told her she'd have to go to karate instead. That was fine, she said, as I'm usually there and if not I'm just at Wegmans across the street, and Madison was there. After I dropped them at karate I went and made apologies to the dance instructor, as there are only four little girls in the class, and I knew she'd wait for Ella to come to start class, so I didn't want to hold things up. But then I knew Ella would be looking for me to come back to karate, so I went back.

The fact is, I think that my recent analysis of this, that Ella is on what she sees as the precipice of this wide, scary world that she has just realized exists, and she's a bit freaked out and wants security. I think she'll grow out of it with some calm, tender, matter-of-fact parenting. We just have to wait.

In the meantime, the things that are really frustrating me are:

1) While Ella really does try to manage during the class even if she's upset (as she tried for 10 minutes at Gym and Swim yesterday), she doesn't seem in principle to be trying to find the root of this problem, figure out what is wrong, or actively work toward stopping it. I try, believe me I try, to talk with her about it. She just says she doesn't know. And she's not even agreeing that exactly it's something she'll have to work to get over; I get a bit of blankness when we try to talk about it. It's hard not to compare her with Madison, who, if this had happened to her, would be analyzing the heck out of herself, putting forth theories, giving ideas about what can be done about it.

2) I've lost all of the "me time" that I used to count on. I can't just drop Ella at any class anymore and do something that's easier to do without kids, or go home and work. I used to count on long stretches of hours during the summer when I could work in blissful silence while they were at camp. Now, I haven't signed her up for ANY camp this year, she doesn't want to go. David has said that maybe a few stretches of bringing Ella with him to the office this summer to hang around reading while Madison has engineering camp at RIT will help bore her enough that she'd rather go to camp with Madison later in the summer. Maybe that will work. At any rate, it will give me some time alone, even if not without guilt for making him lug Ella with him to a small office.

Well, if anyone has other suggestions, I'm all ears.

On the other hand, I've already had my babies

"And I'm going to be 40!" Sally sobs.

"When?" asks Harry.

"Someday..." she gestures vaguely.

"In eight years!"

"But it's there. It's just sitting there like this big dead end."

I, on the other hand, will turn 40 in just a matter of days. 365 of them, to be precise. Now, I can't say this very loudly in a house where someone turned 50 a few months ago, so I will whisper it:


eeek.

The Best Within Us Sometimes Comes Out as Kyrie

Today was Madison's most beautiful choral concert of the year so far with the Bach Children's Chorus. I will admit that I cry at all of her concerts. But this one was my favorite of their entire repertoire; they did John Rutter's "Mass of the Children" with an adult choir called the Kunde Chorale. Even in Rochester, a city that has loads of amazing music courtesy of the Eastman School of Music and a generally very music-literate population, this stood out.

Today's concert was not only the Rutter piece; it also was the American premiere of Richard Blackford's "Mirror of Perfection," which is sung in seven "Canticles," mostly in Italian, with "Canticle of the Birds" in French. That was good, but the Rutter Mass was a better piece. They performed these in an old Lutheran church with great acoustics and beautiful stained glass. I'm sure I wasn't the only one crying. Even Ella liked it all and didn't fidget too much.

If you're interested, check out the Rutter piece on iTunes or the like (avoid YouTube, the few performances there aren't very good). It's sung in Latin and English, a contemporary piece that's not icky or clashy, but heart-poundingly beautiful. A lot of hints of Copeland when he's at his most melodic, and a little John Williams-y for the beginning of the Kyrie and through the Gloria. The choirs actually deserved the standing ovation they got. (For some reason, Rochesterians will ovate almost anything and so it diminishes the relative value of the ovation. David and I have been known to sit stubbornly, though truth to tell somewhat awkardly, while everyone around us is standing.) How I wish they'd recorded it.

Even one of the kids' fainting didn't diminish the performance. Fortunately, the BCC was on risers behind the adult choir, and the girl who fainted was standing behind some tall tenors. So they were able to sneak her off without too much fuss. Apparently it happens every year, at times when the choir is in a smallish warm space with the kids standing for a long time and using lots of oxygen. They actually have a little "what to do when you're about to faint" protocol. This incident makes the BCC three for three on fainting for the last three concerts.

So--the point of this post: What does one make of a die-hard atheist who adores this kind of music, who wants to steep her daughters in it, who does her best to publicize concerts that feature it? It seems, even to me, contradictory. But it's fairly simple: Let's face it, music written to glorify God is easily some of the most beautiful art created by Man, and depriving oneself of it would be, well, self-sacrifice. I don't think Rand would disagree, either. I doubt that there was an adult there who didn't send warm thoughts of silent gratitude to the composers and the performers. Our lives were better when we stepped out of the church than when we stepped in.

When I first started home schooling the girls, I worried about whether they'd be able to be part of a performance of this wonderful stuff, because of course we don't go to church. It's one of the reasons why I'm so glad Madison got into the BCC; the director has great judgment of music. And she does a remarkable job with the kids: They're easily the equal of the Cambridge Choir that does the Rutter on the piece iTunes has. Performing this music makes the world a better place, no question. Madison doesn't understand that, yet, of course, but she will, some day. And then she'll probably cry, too, just like me.

First

I am upstairs in bed sick AGAIN. Or STILL. Or something. I remain amazed at the sheer amount of mucus my sinuses have produced today, I almost can't believe I'm eating enough to produce that quantity of gook. I capitulated a half-hour ago and snorfed some Afrin in the hopes of getting some relief.

Anyway, I just heard shouted from the dim recesses of the downstairs:

Daddy, you just don't GET it!

I don't know what it was about. I don't want to know. That is the first time I've heard this from one of my kidlets, but I'm sure it won't be the last.

More on Ella

This seems to be "Ella week," as is only appropriate.

On her birthday, I took her to Sweet and Sassy, a salon for girls in nearby Pittsford. I reviewed the experience (with photos) here.

Ella is in a big transitional period, I think. She's still overall as happy as a cute little clam, and still ever so snuggly, but new things are churning around beneath the surface. I don't remember Madison being that way as she turned 7, she was in a nice smoothing-out period.

Several months ago, Ella's bad experience in the Pittsford Ballet had turned her overnight, it seemed, from being someone who was happy to be left at various classes into someone who was too anxious to let mom out of her sight. In March, I started her at a new dance school with a darling of a Grandma-like teacher, Elizabeth Clark, and it seemed to work wonders. Now, though, Ella is back in a period of semi-anxiety. She doesn't want me to leave her at any class by herself, and she's still uneasy about being left even if the class she's in is with Madison or is something she's been doing for years, like karate. It's weird.

She doesn't want to go into rooms alone. She keeps telling us she's scared. She's having a hard time sleeping in her own bed, she doesn't want to be in her room alone while going to sleep; although she does do it, we have to leave the light on and let her read herself to sleep. And then she never makes it through the night; sometime in the wee hours she always comes in and snuggles with me.

She's also a bit hair-trigger cranky. She's much quicker to take offense and act outraged when things don't go her way. She's always been one to "try it on" just for fun, to see if mock-outrage is amusing or effective, but lately, it seems, that the trying-it-on blends really quickly into something almost genuine, or perhaps just something that is less in her control.

And then, there's the lying. Well, twice. But Madison assures us that Ella has been in the habit of bending the truth here and there for a month or two.

Now, to her credit, she's a terrible liar, hasn't tried to stick with a story once we questioned it skeptically...so it's not as though she's trying hard to be deceptive. And the lying has been about things that don't really matter. And, once found out, she's totally mortified, so upset at the idea of having lied (and I think that's genuine...she actually doesn't want to be someone who has lied, as opposed to someone who has been discovered to have lied) that it takes her a good deal of sobbing to get a grip and admit it out loud and say she's sorry. We haven't even needed to come down on her hard or anything, or even engage in long, boring lectures about why we don't lie. We've just had to be firmly a bit appalled, and her own psyche takes care of the rest.

I think she'll grow out of this really quickly. But it does mean that we'll be more skeptical of her assertions for a little while.

One thing I know about Madison: She just doesn't lie, period. And the fact that Ella has only done it a little bit, recently, and we've been able to find out and ferret out the truth, means that I'm really pretty lucky, here. And, my kids are in such a position that they don't feel the need to lie about things, which makes me feel good, too.

Mid-week hilarity ensued

My dear friend Donald and his lovely wife Meredith were over for a day and an evening this week.

Somehow, my girls picked this visit to go a little nuts with the singing, dancing, performing, and general clowning around. ("I see they're about as shy as you, Deb," Don said a few minutes after meeting them.) Fortunately, this was ok, as both Don and Meredith are used to being around artsy actor-types (Meredith has been a producer and Don has acted in community theater in L.A. for a number of years). Maybe the girls picked up on the vibe. And, as those who know Don know, he is the fastest punster in the West and also a tease, so he got along great with the girls. Madison said to me afterward, "I see what you mean about Don, Mom. I think I picked up some tips."

So, unless Don and Meredith are superb actors themselves, which of course they may be, I think they actually enjoyed my girls' theatrics. I saw no subtle wincing or teeth-gritting as you so often do with people who enjoy neither kids nor their antics. Neither looked like they wanted to escape. I was grateful. And, of course, my kids were encouraged by the applause and foisted as much entertainment as they could on our poor guests. Madison capped off their visit this morning with a rousing version of Tom Lehrer's "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park."

Update: Don just wrote me and said, "Rarely have I heard trout extolled in song and verse to the accompaniment of improvised ballet." That just about sums it up.