You must see this video: Dancing with Matt

Today, I learned how to embed a YouTube video in this blog just so I could bring it to anyone who has not happened to see it yet. It is one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen. I keep wishing it were longer than four-and-a-half minutes.

I found a really interesting article about it here. Notice the poem translation on the right side. The girl singing, Palbasha Siddique, is a Bengali girl who lives in Minneapolis. She's only 17!

David's favorite part is in the Demilitarized Zone, Korea. There's also a clip from Central Park, where we had our first date.

Green green green engineering camp

Madison came home from camp yesterday, smiling again at me in that way.

"Okay, guess what we talked about TODAY at engineering camp?" she asked.

"Oh, gee, did you save whales?" I asked.

"Nope."

"Refuse to cut down trees?"

"Worse."

"What could be worse?"

"Organic food, of course. Did you know," she continued, mock-innocently, "that organic food has more minerals. Yep. That's what they told us. More minerals. That's why it's better for us. So it's time to start buying organic food, Mom. Right? Or we'll all start dying soon."

I groaned.

"Aren't you going to bang your head against the wall again?" she encouraged.

I complied.

I guess it really IS Beatles week

...because Laura has a new review of the family board game Ticket To Ride up on the KidsOutAndAbout.com web site.

This is one of her family's favorite games.

It's not the end of the world, Ella!

Oh, wait, I guess maybe it IS the end of The World...



This is the big cardboard book we use every morning to identify where the birthday of the day comes from. This was no one's fault (heh, heh...just a little tectonic plate humor for you there). It just came apart tonight due to years of enthusiasm.

Thank goodness for clear packing tape, because there is no way we're giving THIS book up anytime soon.

Rewind idea

I just love this idea from Mrs. Hannigan's blog: Have a magic invisible rewind remote control device floating somewhere near you, which you can pluck out of the air at any moment, point at the children, and direct them to rewind and try that more time, this time properly. She swears it works:
http://mrshannigan.blogspot.com/2008/07/wait-rewind.html

Update: It just worked with Ella. Just after lunch, it was time to start looking at the patterns in the 7 times table and she started moaning about it. "Wait!" I said, pulling the rewind device out of the air. I pointed it at her and said, "Rewind!" and made that sound that you always associate with rewinding but which is not reproducible on screen... and she giggled and tried a better response.

With a wink and a glint of a smile

Madison told me that large chunks of the engineering camp that she's currently in are replete with environmentalist junk science.

She's got such a good, smiley attitude about it; it doesn't bother her at all. She's extremely good about dissecting the doomsday junk. ("Don't use hair dryers, don't use air conditioning, get your parents to use fans instead, because global warming is drowning the polar bears".... Really. Not kidding.)

David can't decide whether to write a polite note to the director of the camp. He's fairly incensed that HIS university, an engineering university, is propagating this crap when they should be doing, well, engineering. (To be fair, they do one bona fide engineering project each day and Madison is enjoying it.)

It really doesn't bother her, it kind of amuses her, and if she wasn't herself able to separate the garbage from the worthwhile stuff in her good old mental recycling bins, I might be encouraging David to write away. But I think he should wait until after the camp to do so. She's fine, the kids are nice, the counselors are nice, she's having fun, and she knows gloom-and-doom stupidity when she hears it. And, frankly, she likes being able to come home and see how many of my buttons she can push by describing it.

But yes, I think David should write a note when it's all over, unless they shape up pronto.

Ringo

Today's Birthday of the Day was Ringo Starr. So we did a lot of Beatles facts today at breakfast.

Each evening at dinner, it's the girls' job to remember the facts; for each one, they get a nickel. You know: When was he born, where was he born, what did he do, can you name the Beatles song that was Mom and Dad's wedding theme ('Til There was You), etc.

In answer to the question "What was the Beatles' nickname?" there was dead silence for a few moments.

Then Ella ventured a guess. "The Four Short Guys?"

Damned girls

No, not MINE. My girls are not damned.

But those other 'tweenie twits, damn them.

Okay, it's not quite so bad as that. Yet. I'm borrowing the trouble from a future whose inklings have only just started rearing their ugly little coifed heads.

(Have you ever seen a metaphor as badly mixed as that one? Almost certainly not.)

The inklings were around last week, in the form of Isabelle. Or Isobel. I don't care how she spells her name.

She was a 9- or 10-year-old at the drama camp where Madison spent her days last week. And she was nasty. Nasty to mine, on Tuesday, as well as to other girls, as Madison reports. For example, Madison asked nicely if she could sit next to Izzie at lunch, and the little wench glared and snarled, "Don't you dare." Madison was a little freaked by it. Not traumatized, mind you, not enough so that it was the very first thing that she reported about the day. But it WAS the second thing. And the girl talked nastily about the "other Madison" in my Madison's group. ("No one likes her. Don't YOU go being friends with her.")

So Madison and I had several talks about it Tuesday night, all of the "hold your head up, you don't need to stand there meekly while people give you crap, this is HER problem not yours, here is how you need to think..." and generally pep-talking her into some backbone. Madison asked me to have the counselor keep an eye on the perp on Wednesday morning. So I did. ("Yeah, we noticed she's a little spitfire," said the counselor. "We'll keep a closer eye today so that we make sure everyone has a good experience this week.")

And then...

Seems that the backbone pep talk worked, too well.

"Guess who I ate lunch with," said Madison after I picked her up on Wednesday. "Isobel! She asked me to sit with her, and I thought it would be rude to say no...actually I was kind of afraid she would be mean to me if I didn't but mostly it was that I didn't want to be rude...so I did. I gave her my chocolate, too."

It didn't even occur to my Madison that she could really be hurting the Other Madison and anyone else to whom Isobel had been mean, just by sitting with her.

I could see, suddenly, so clearly, how these things get started with the girls. One bad apple and then a lot of misinterpretations and confusion about how to navigate these things.

I did tell her something that I'd never needed to emphasize before: It is not rude to politely avoid people who are mean to others, and in fact REALLY not rude if you point it out to them that they're being mean. And, when you notice someone being mean habitually, you ABSOLUTELY do not play with them. Ever. You play with the people they're being mean to, unless of course you don't like those people either. And we never give them chocolate.

I wanted to shake the mean girl. I wanted to skip the next seven years for Madison and land her nicely on the other side, where it's easy to not care about the popular girls. But I didn't want to make too big a fuss about it, because then it would be sure to loom larger than life in Madison's mind. So on Thursday, the final day, I didn't even ask who Isobel was at the performance for the parents. And that was that.

What I didn't say to Madison was that starting almost exactly at her age, there were girls from the fourth grade through the twelfth grade who thoroughly scorched my soul with their nastiness. I'm still bitter, 30 years later. My baby cannot, WILL NOT, damn it, become one of those people. But as I saw last week, the subtleties of it are just so hard to negotiate when you're young and inexperienced, and nice.

Fortunately, these next two weeks she's at Engineering Camp at RIT. I'm hoping she finds some friends-forever soulmates among the brainy geek computer types like her.

Great, gorgeous independence

We had a wonderful Fourth of July. Our dear friends were up from Pennsylvania to join us on our annual pilgrimage to Brown's Berry Patch. That's about a 45-minute drive from Rochester, which is significant around here because we're spoiled with getting anywhere within 20 minutes. Waterport is midway between Rochester and Buffalo, out in the middle of nowhere. It not only has great cherries and strawberries and raspberries and blueberries to pick, but a terrific little "Barnyard Adventure" playground/maze/farm animal section for which they charge about $3.50 per person to play as long as you want. Awesome little store inside, too.

Since we go there every year on July 4, I had the idea a month ago to ask Farmer Brown's daughter, who is in charge of publicity, if they would be willing to offer a free pass into the Barnyard Adventure for all KidsOutAndAbout.com readers. I'd create the coupon and people would need to print one for each person.

I'd had the idea, I confess, mostly because I knew that we'd be going, and I wanted to save our family the extra $14. So, quite self-interested. But of course, I wanted it to have the effect of bringing lots of readers out to Brown's. And they thought it was a great idea. But little did I expect it to have quite the effect it did. Apparently, there were literally hundreds of people out there in Waterport using their coupons to get in. The people in front of us into the Barnyard Adventure had one. So did the people in back of us. I saw two coupons blowing over the ground in the wind. And then when I was in line to pay for my cherries, Mrs. Brown found me and hugged me, and someone else recognized me, and then there was a chorus of "Oh, that's you? Hi! I read your web site!" and "That's why I'm here!" all around me. Very odd. Fun, though. I felt great. I love the idea that it brought them so much business. Mrs. Brown said that it's been a very slow season so far because of fuel costs, and she was totally lit up to see the crowds there on Friday. It was a gorgeous day, too...so, to be fair, I'm sure Mother Nature had more to do with the crowds than my coupon. But still.

A little idea, a few minutes creating and posting a coupon, a mention in the newsletter...and then, crowds of people out there having a blast, saving money, and picking pounds of cherries with their kids...and a huge profit (at least I hope) for the worthy folks at Brown's Berry Patch. You gotta love capitalism.

Here are some photos of the girls and Dario:





Ella picking cherries:


Madison picking cherries:


A few of the best people in the whole world:


Tony and Tatiana are from Cuba, and there is nothing like spending Independence Day with them. They are so INTO it. The cherry orchard is like what everyone imagines paradise to be...handfuls of the sweetest fruit just there for the picking. Unimaginable under a communist dictatorship. Tatiana said it brought out the Cubana in her whenever one of the cherries hit the ground--painful, the idea of it being wasted when so few people there get adequate nutrition.

And then an afternoon of cooking and making cherry ice cream, and fireworks at Harris Whalen Park with a couple of other dear Objectivist friends, Tom and Susan. One of those great, uncomplicated, satisfying days.

Creeping closer to that magic "I love reading" day...

Ella had a first this morning.

It was Sunday, so it was an eat-breakfast-when-and-what-and-how-you-feel-like-it kind of morning. I was working on the laptop at the dining room table.

Ella poured herself some cereal, got a spoon, and then, lo and behold, brought out a chapter book and stuck it into this plastic book-holder-upper thing that will allow you to read while you're eating (probably meant for cookbooks). And then, without comment, she flung herself down next to me and started reading as she munched. It was Flat Stanley. I sent a silent message of gratitude to Jeff Brown.

10,000 Birds iPod contest...believe it or not...

Well, our birding horizons have just been dramatically expanded because...

...We won the big contest from 10,000 birds.

Yes, we...me, Madison, and Ella! If you click on the link you can see Charlie's daughter's jammy finger pointing to our name on his laptop! We won an iPod from HarperCollins, just LOADED with bird songs. Charlie emailed me today to tell me that we'd won. Yay to HarperCollins for donating the iPod! Yay to 10,000 Birds for hosting the contest!


Each day for 10 days, Charlie posted a fragment of a post from 10,000 Birds, and each day we got to search through the site, identify the URL of the post that the fragment came from, and send that URL to Charlie in the hopes of winning one of 10 Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America that 10,000 Birds was giving away. Day by day, we searched, found, and sent in that day's URL. But we didn't win a book.


But...there was more to the contest. If we diligently collected the first letter of that post each day, then the 10 letters could be rearranged to form the name of a species of North American bird. And so before June 30, we were to send Charlie all 10 URLs and the name of the bird.

The name of the bird was BLUETHROAT. Isn't he cute?

He lives in western Alaska.

We cannot wait to get that iPod. Ella, in particular, is just going to go nuts with it. And so am I!

Biz Kid$ - new PBS show

There is a new PBS show on in the afternoons called "Biz Kid$." Well, it's new to the Rochester area, anyway; I have a feeling the programs have been showing elsewhere for a year or so.

Madison happened across this program last week and loves it. It's mostly about entrepreneurship and money, both of which subjects are near and dear to her heart. It's produced in conjunction with Junior Achievement.

But. BUT.

A show from late last week was about paychecks and taxes. You know: Why it is, when you get a paycheck, there are all of these amounts taken out here and there for FICA, Social Security, etc.

And, see, they explained what these things are. They explained how Social Security will help you save money for retirement. They explained how the tax money that is taken out builds roads, funds the police, educates our kids, helps the poor, heals the sick...YOU KNOW, all of those vital things our benevolent government needs to take care of to make the country work. "Oh!" the kids on the show say, feeling proud that their work helps make the world go round by paying taxes.

No discussion of whether this may or may not be a good idea. No discussion of whether it is moral for a government forcibly to take the money you make and give it to someone else, or fund huge government initiatives that themselves may or may not be ethical. No sense that any of this is at all an issue...no, no, just a treatment of government as benevolently looking out for your interests. See, it's no big deal at all, that you don't get to keep your own money, you just hand it over to us and we'll take care of spending it.

Well, it was a teaching moment. For Ella, at least. Madison already knows what I'm going to say.

A lot of the Biz Kid$ stuff seems fine, inspirational, even. I'll just need to keep tabs on it.

And, when this morning I asked Ella what she remembers about the show, she mostly remembers that the kids on the show are chagrined that someone is taking their money. So, while I think this defeated the purpose of the show's organizers somewhat, the end result turns out kind of okay from my perspective.

PowerPoint

I showed Madison PowerPoint yesterday, and today she spent four solid hours working on it, making slide shows, learning things I didn't know that PowerPoint could do. She's a fiddler, that kid. She is perfectly happy to mess around in a program and discover what it does. She LOVES doing that.

I can't wait until we get the robot. And her two-week engineering camp at RIT starts a week from tomorrow.

She spent a little while prancing around today, showing us her creations and telling us how much she loves computers, working with photo editing software and putting her new creations into PowerPoint slide shows. So I'm thinking it's about time to figure out how to hook up our VHS-C video recorder to the computer, and get her some friendly video editing software, and let her go nuts.

We actually know the guy who was the principal designer of the original PowerPoint; an objectivist, as it happens. Dennis Austin. Thanks, Dennis, for giving us all of this power!

Not the contest for me, I fear

Today I brought the kids to the library for their summer kick-off book reading event (theme for this summer: Catch the Reading Bug), and while they were variously immersed in decorating a paper butterfly (Ella) or reading (Madison), I dove into Literary Marketplace to do some research about publishers to whom I might submit my book.

I've been reading Erika Dreifus's Practicing Writer blog, and she recently recommended entering contests as a good strategy for getting your writing done. And when I was looking at the publisher's entry for Knopf Delacorte Dell today, I noticed that they have an annual contest for their Yearling imprint: For a First Middle-Grade Novel. See the rules online, the notice said.

So when I got home, I read the rules. Wow, entries have to be postmarked between April 1, 2008 and... Monday, June 30. That's THIS Monday. I'd already planned to finish the book this weekend in a marathon session. Could I get it done in time to postmark on Monday? Probably, yes. That would be a real fire lit under me, that's for sure. Maybe this would be a heck of an opportunity...

Oh, shoot. The rules say: Manuscripts sent to Delacorte Press may not be submitted to other publishers or literary agents while under consideration for the prize.

That wouldn't be so bad if the editor-judges hadn't given themselves the luxury of waiting until October to respond to you. OCTOBER!

So, I think that's out. I have momentum here, there's no way I'm twiddling my thumbs until OCTOBER. That only leaves me 7 months until I turn 40, for pete's sake. And...it's a FIRST NOVEL contest. Doesn't that mean that everyone who might enter it is in the same position as I?

Maybe I'm kidding myself, thinking that someone will accept this for publication before then. Anyway, I'm just not willing to take the risk of delaying my submissions for 4 months.

It's the Jersey Girl in me

I know this is kind of silly, but I had to post because I'm so excited. The Legos folks are sending me a sample kit of the Mindstorms Robot for me to review on KidsOutAndAbout.com! Woohoo!!! This kit requires a mixture of building and programming.

The way this happened is that Madison has been wanting to build a robot for AGES, as well as start programming. Well, our dear friends got one of these Mindstorms robots for their 8-year-old son, and he absolutely adores it, has spent hours learning to program it. They recommended that I get one for Madison.

So I told Madison that I would give her one as an end-of-the-year-congratulations-on-all-your-hard-work present. I told her this before I understood what the price tag was. YEEOUCH! $249.

Oh well, that's an expensive promise to make, but once I make them, I don't break promises except in extreme circumstances. First, I started thinking about clients to whom I could propose new projects. But then I started a little brainstorm about Mindstorms. How about a review for KidsOutAndAbout.com? So I spent the early part of this week tracking down the right people to talk to, and got passed to a publicity firm in San Francisco today. And it turns out that they would be DELIGHTED to send me a free Mindstorms for me to review! They're supplying press releases, and photos, and instructions, and the woman is even doing some of the research for me, to find all the stores in western New York who carry it. She just called me back. I explained how confusing it is when people visit the Mindstorms.lego.com web site, and said how my review would be guiding parents through the confusion. She asked if I were on deadline, and I explained that I am not ACTUALLY on deadline, but SPIRITUALLY I am, because I want to get this out the second week of July so that parents can use this as a summer project for them and their kids.

I felt like dancing when she said, "Sure, we'd be happy to send you the kit. I'll put it in the mail today and you should have it early next week."

It's that whole FREE thing bringing out the New Jersey in me. I was so happy that I even brought laundry downstairs and pre-treated stains and loaded the washer. Yes, THAT excited. Now I'm going to go help Madison clean her room. You know, to make a nice neat place for her new robot.

HISSS

Laura's new column, a review of the game Hisss, is up on the KidsOutAndAbout.com web site.

This whole games review site is so much fun.
I'm going to have to get Carcassonne.

ooooh, that rhymes.

Oh, please, not THAT, Dad!

Ella was pouting one day recently, and during it she wrote the following note that she pointedly gave to David:



Those who know David can certainly determine what a "LacshR" is if you just think for a moment. Those who can't pick apart Ella's phonetic spelling, just ask.

David loved this so much that we now have this note hanging in our kitchen. He never wants to get rid of it.

Sounds kind of Arabic, now that I think of it. Al acshr

10,000 Birds

One of the originators of a great birding site, Mike of 10,000 Birds, is moving from the Bronx to Rochester!

I definitely recommend 10,000 Birds. Heavy on the science, usually very accessible information, beautiful photos, fairly light on the conservation aspects of things. Perfect for adults and kids who are interested in nature.

I'm so excited that Mike is moving up here. I'm sure he'll be able to sharpen our awareness of the local birds. I put a nice comment on his post this morning announcing the move, and offered to make sure his western New York posts get indexed on KidsOutAndAbout.com so that Rochesterians can benefit. He responded that he's already well aware of KidsOutAndAbout.com, that his wife had bookmarked it weeks ago in preparation for the move, and he'll be in touch. Isn't that neat?

Science for four hours

Today was the last day of school in our school district, so I took the opportunity to go to the Rochester Museum & Science Center. It was dead quiet. No one goes to the RMSC on the last morning of school, except for home schoolers who want to get some quality time in before summer camps start letting kids run wild in there. So it was perfect for experimenting with their new exhibit without lots of kids jostling each other for a turn.

This new permanent exhibit in their AdventureZone section is called "R Weather" (from R News, Time Warner's Rochester station). Kids can do a weather forecast that is broadcast on the screen, which isn't anything new. But...it is also saved temporarily so that you can replay it. AND, best yet, you can email a copy of the WMV file to your husband or to whomever else is at work while you are at play. And then you can upload it to your blog. Totally cool.

Both girls (with a typical division of labor):



This one is even funnier. Anyone who wonders what kind of a kid Ella is, well, this says it all. Here is Ella's prescription for what one should do in the event of a massive flood:

Ignore these photos

Hi all, sorry to post these photos here but it is the easiest way to show a certain person who is much handier than I what I'm talking about when I say "the slate patio over my garage leaks like heck."

This is our 90-year-old patio. It looks like slate, doesn't it? I'm pretty sure it is. The grout is not in great condition. It does slope away gently to a point behind the table, which is a hole in the slate, which siphons out to a pipe that sticks out to the outside under the patio. That gushes when it rains.



But it also leaks all over the patio, directly down to the basement, especially during winter when the melting is slow enough to seep downward instead of flow over toward the hole in the corner. And here you see the result, in the garage underneath. Those are rusty metal joists. I think they used to be painted institutional green. And, it looks like it is kind of concrete up on the ceiling, but there is a regular pattern that looks like wood but doesn't seem to be. Maybe concrete covering some kind of beam? I haven't had the guts to drill in and see. (We've only owned the house a year and a half.)

You can see the green on the walls, can't you? Mold or moss or what have you. It's damp in there.



The drips down from the ceiling contain something gross: whitish, and really, really difficult to remove from the car when it drips onto it. Looks like bird poop, frankly, though not viscous. If Rochester weren't the snowiest large city in the U.S., we might not use the garage at all.

I would love to be able to seal this or otherwise make it better. So, Handy Person, if you have any ideas for a project whose supplies I can get at the Big Orange Store, I would be grateful. (You can also just email me at ross@axton.com.)

I let her read to herself, right?

Ella has been asking to do her daily reading to herself, rather than out loud to me. They are chapter books (the Rachel-and-Kirsty Rainbow Fairy books which I loathe, but she loves).

She doesn't often ask for help with words, so I know she is skipping some, which I would help her with if she'd read it out loud.

But at the same time, I do know that she's reading, not pretending to read. I can see that.

So...do I make her do any out-loud reading, or just leave her be? I leave her be, right? And forget making her read out loud for now. Right? Anyone have arguments pro or con? My gut says let her just read as she likes for now. But I am open to other reasoning on this.

I would love to get her to where she just picks up a book for pleasure. Madison was way beyond that by this time. (Sorry, can't help comparing.) Anyway, that, more than anything, tells me to let her do it in her own sweet way or I'll crush any emerging love of reading out of her.

A new game from Laura

Laura has now reviewed Carcassonne.

It's for ages 8 and up. Construct the settlement of Carcassonne, a medieval French city.

I think I won't show this to Madison for a little while. When the girl saw Zooloretto, she really, really wanted it. Badly. I think she'd want this one even more. ("Can we at least go visit them even if we can't buy the game?")

Laura is on fire with reviews. I can't keep up with her. She has submitted two others (Hisss and Ticket to Ride) that I haven't formatted yet.

That'll teach me

I think Ella may be coming out of her six-month clingy phase. But it's slow going. She still gets "scared" to go upstairs or downstairs on her own, often. And she comes into our room in the middle of the night every. single. night. Fortunately, she doesn't wake us up anymore, but just crawls right on in and snuggles. And, she is very snuggly, although occasionally a little kicky. So it doesn't affect us that much. It affects me positively, frankly. I like snuggling.

But I confess to having felt irritated lately about the "scared" bit. It has seemed to me like an excuse. Ella might have been scared after a movie or something, but then, it seemed, she talked herself into just being scared, and scared she has stayed. Not always, just when it's convenient, it seems to me.

Well, the other night I had a nightmare. A terrible nightmare. About GHOSTS, of all things. And I, the 39-year-old avowed rational rejecter of all things supernatural, was terrified to get out of bed for a few minutes. I cowered there under the blankets, and cuddled next to David for a while before I could breathe normally and go back to sleep.

So, okay. If a person like me could get freaked out by her own imagination, by things that don't exist, why not a little 7-year-old. It will just require a little more thought to acknowledge the fact that her fear exists without seeming to validate it--and without quite the tartness that may have characterized my no-nonsense attitude lately.

Difficult for Madison

I decided to institute a rule that when one of the girls has a friend over that is clearly that girls' friend, like L, whom I mentioned in an earlier post, then the other child spends time with me, or working alone, but is not automatically included in the others' play unless specifically invited.

This is proving very hard, for Madison, today. Ella's friend L is over for a play date.

Madison is very social. She also has an extremely forceful personality, and tends to take over, because she's got a million ideas, and can at the drop of a hat organize just about anything you might want to do. One of those leader-types, even in a group with kids slightly older than her. Madison's personality happens to work well with one of her best friends, who happens to be slightly autistic although Madison knows nothing about it...that friend *needs* someone else to provide the structure, to do most of the talking, and Madison naturally fills in the gaps and never wonders why her friend doesn't talk much. But it doesn't always work well, especially when Ella needs not to be overshadowed.

So I've had to talk with Madison a bunch about how, even though it hasn't really happened yet, she will definitely be in the reverse situation many times in the future, when she will want to be alone with some friend. She tried to tell me that this wouldn't happen, that she would always have Ella involved, but she stopped in the middle of that claim. I think she could tell how ridiculous that must have sounded, even to her own ears.

She has required a lot of encouragement, this afternoon. Mostly, I kept her with me, just talking, but then she wanted to play with the others so much that I told her to get involved in building something and the other girls would naturally want to play with *her*, that if she built it they would come. She didn't believe me. It took some convincing, and then leaving her alone to make the decision on her own. I'm glad she tried it out, because she made some cool Lego castles. And she was wrong; the girls came to integrate their play with her building. I won't cast it up to her. But I will probably remind her of it next time.

A tough lesson. But if she learns that it's fine for other kids to want to do things on her own without including her, that's just life, no big deal...and she won't be as hurt when people do it in the future. She can go and do her own thing, in those circumstances. That, really, is what I'm trying to use this to teach her.

I don't remember this being true of me

What IS it with girls who feel that they have license to have the screechy-screechies every time I ask them to brush their hair, or approach them with a hairbrush to do it myself?

I must have given them the license somehow, but I can't remember doing it. They've only gotten marginally better about this since they were 4 or so. When they do get the moaning under control, their faces still look as though I was pulling out their fingernails rather than just brushing their hair -- with detangler in it!

It drives me nuts, frankly. If I'm not around and David needs to get them looking like they don't have rats' nests on their heads, he just usually foregoes the brush entirely and gathers their hair into a ponytail.

Sheesh. It makes me want to cut it all off.

But I can't, they're beautiful!

Off to the editor

The first three chapters of The Frontier Team and a one-page summary are off to the editor who requested them.

Yes!

Yesterday, David took the girls on a long Father's Day Erie Canal bike ride to give me the afternoon to edit those three chapters and polish the summary. Afterward, Madison, who has had a camping bee in her bonnet for a couple of weeks, set up our new-ish tent with David's help and got all set to camp out overnight. She's a really independent kid. Ella had pretentions of joining her, but then chickened out and went to sleep in my room. Madison read for a few hours in the twilight, but couldn't go to sleep so she came in. Good thing she did, too, because we had a fierce thunder-and-lightning storm about 15 minutes after she came in.

On Saturday evening, the girls went to a Parents' Night Out from 6pm-10pm sponsored by their karate dojo. (David and I saw the new Indiana Jones movie. I had the unusual experience of rating the movie a B, but thoroughly enjoying myself nonetheless.) Ella has been skittish of being left alone at a place ever since she adopted this odd anxiety-clinginess in January, but I think she may be coming out of it. After some hesitation last week, she agreed to go to the Parents' Night Out, looked forward to it eagerly, and had a great time. So, fingers crossed, maybe she's emerging from this uncharacteristically long phase of discomfort with the world.

It is a lovely June morning here in Rochester. I've copied John Enright's latest poem, June Morning, into a special document I created to use for the girls' handwriting practice.

We're definitely in low tide. Madison will read "How to Build a Robot" for school. Ella will read some Nancy Drew Notebooks. We'll participate in this cool contest from the web site 10,000 birds, which starts today and runs for 10 days. And then off to Gym-and-Swim and then, for Ella, dance class.

Story via David

Yesterday's Birthday of the Day was Thomas Young, the 18th-century scientist and mathematician who invented Young's Modulus, a measure of stiffness/elasticity. (In a family where the dad is an industrial mathematician, one actually hears about Young's Modulus quite often.)

David often does the Birthday of the Day while I am getting ready for the day. This was the case yesterday. I was upstairs.

"Young's family were Quakers," he said. "Do you know someone who went to a university whose mascot is a Quaker?"

I went to the University of Pennsylvania. We always called our football team "The Oxymoronic Fighting Quakers." But I guess the girls didn't know that Penn's mascot is a Quaker. They looked at him blankly.

David gave them a hint: He pointed upward.

Still no response. Then, Ella ventured a guess: "Jesus?"

Editor wants to see the book!

Is it bad luck that the first editor to whom one has pitched the book wants to see it? The editor from that Perfect Pitch contest I entered last week wants me to send her a summary page and the first three chapters.

Good thing we objectivist-types don't believe in bad luck.

And it's a good thing it's not the last three chapters she wants to see.

Announcing Family Board Game Reviews by Laura

After about 10 years of racking my brain to find ways that Laura and I could work together, I finally hit upon it last week.

Introducing...

The new Board Games Review section of KidsOutAndAbout.com!

Laura has become quite the board game expert in the last several years due both to her penetrating insight AND her penchant for perusing board game sites late at night while her wallet is burning a hole right through her purse. After months of hearing about the pros and cons of this game and that, and purchasing games like Killer Bunnies on her recommendation, I finally realized: If Laura reviews the games for KidsOutAndAbout.com, it will be a win-win-win-win-win: Parents will get information about products they never heard of, worthy game publishers get additional exposure, I get additional hits to KOA from all over the country, Laura's kids will soon have new games from Laura being plied by game manufacturers with free stuff in their hopes of scoring a review, and Laura gets a way of rationalizing her obsession.



We started off with two reviews: Of Zooloretto (ages 8 and up) and Rat-A-Tat-Cat (ages 6 and up). The reviews are concise, tell you what you need to know, and convey nicely what it is like to play the game. There are also links to where you can purchase each game. I'll post new reviews here as we add them.

A new state fact

We've been working on state facts, state capitals, and colonial history.

However, I'm not sure much of it is sticking.

We talked about the founding of the mid-Atlantic states yesterday. I asked them this morning:

"So, who remembers who founded the state of Pennsylvania?"

"Mr. Pencil?" Madison suggested.

A bit of malaise

Anyone else suffering a bit from not wanting to "do school"?

This week I've chosen an extremely relaxed approach to school rather than our usual semi-vigorous schedule in the mornings. It's been very hot. I've been patting myself on the back for deciding to put in central air last summer, which means we don't have to hide out in the basement, and cooking doesn't mean suffering. We still have the Birthday of the Day every morning (today's birthday: John Roebling) even though I haven't been writing it out in advance. I've been reading history and mythology to them, they've done piano and karate practice as usual, we did Candy Chemistry yesterday with a kit Madison got for her 5th birthday, we went on the Book Hike yesterday, and have been to the library twice. Ella and I have been weeding and watering the garden and observing what is growing and what has not yet sprouted despite our pleas.

(Oh, and last week right out in plain daylight we saw a mother deer right by the garden. I had images of our great garden plans being chomped to bits, and I so wanted to chase her away. But then, from behind the shed stepped a tiny fawn, not more than a month old, all spotted and beautiful and hesitant. It reached under its mother and started to nurse. "You go right ahead and munch on my radishes if you need to," I said to the mother deer, to the girls' vast amusement.)

Madison and I have had a lot of Frontier Team book discussion and editing. But no one has done official math other than some play math at the dinner table, no handwriting, no spelling, no grammar, no (official) logic. They've had karate, dance, and "Gym and Swim" lessons. A lot of things have gotten built while I've been reading to them: there's a whole Brio train setup in my dining room, we had the No Ends building set out for a while, and I think it's time to bring Zome back in for another try. Madison has been tearing through some new library Nancy Drews like a California wildfire. Ella has watched a bit more TV than I'd prefer, but I figure the worst thing an extra episode or two of "What Not To Wear" (her current obsession) will do is make her want to buy some high heels.

It's not the girls' malaise, you know, it's mine. They'd be perfectly happy with the structured learning that typified last week, when I was Super-Homeschooling-Writer-Mom. But I've mostly been working on my own stuff: the book (almost done with chapter 13, about to start the end game), and clients have needed things. Usually I'd be really into Kim's science discussions this week over at Kim's Play Place. I mean, it's really neat stuff! But my attitude, to my own horror, has been, "yeah, yeah, I should remember to read this sometime when I care about it." Yikes. The girls seem to go with the flow either way. But there's no denying the fact that they're not learning nearly as much as they would if they, you know, focused on educating themselves.

It's just so easy to rationalize my lassitude by saying, "They're ahead, they're ahead, don't worry..."

Anyway, we have two more official "weeks" of school, for which I will make a definite effort to be structured again. Then Madison has a week of drama camp and two weeks of engineering camp in quick succession, during which Ella and I will do school in the mornings, just the two of us. A relaxed version, I figure, focusing on getting those multiplication tables into her, and a lot of reading.

A little book hike

Today, I took the girls down to Powder Mills Park in Pittsford, to hike along Irondequoit Creek.

In the book that I'm writing with lots of input from Madison, this is where most of the action takes place. We haven't been to that part of the park in a while, certainly not since we started this project. So it was rather exciting for her: She got to settle, in her own mind, just exactly where everything takes place: which beaver dam traps the mysterious treasure chest, which property that borders the park could be the Haworths', etc. The Frontier Team detectives use a satellite map and images of the area to work out some logic about where the treasure chest may have originally been buried. We went through the same process, yesterday, and today we brought the satellite photo printout and referred to it as we were hiking. Ella was very interested in transferring the layout she could see from the ground into an image from the sky.

So now, as we go through endless editing, Madison (and I!) will have some great mental pictures of the actual setting. She was enraptured with the idea that maybe, after the book is published, other kids would walk that trail "just as we are, right now, Mom," to see where it all "happens."

Nostril fluttering on demand

Sometimes, when Madison gets upset, she can get herself VERY worked up. She projects the worst thing that something could possibly mean, decides that it DOES mean that, and reacts accordingly. If you the parent decide to fight back with her, it makes it much worse -- it confirms that the issue is indeed worth getting upset about. She gets under David's skin more than she does mine; it's not that she's pushing his buttons on purpose; noticing the effects of her behavior on her parents just isn't even on the radar. Sometimes I laugh at her because I just can't help it, she gets so ridiculous; although it makes her kind of mad when I do it, it's actually better. It tells her that the issue is not worth getting so worked up about.

Last night, when Madison was getting all ready to launch into some hysterical diatribe or other, I noticed something weird. Her NOSTRILS were vibrating. FLUTTERING, actually. It was one of the funniest things I'd ever seen. I couldn't contain myself; I had to hold in my sides. And what was really strange was that she could sort of control it; she could, by focusing, *make it happen* on demand. It has something to do with her chest muscles and neck muscles, she says.

The best part was that it really broke the tension. And she says she intends to keep doing it, that she'll be able to keep herself from getting too upset if she can just make us laugh.

Got in my Pitch

I remarked in an earlier post that I was going to submit an entry in a "Perfect Pitch" contest sponsored by an editor who specializes in midgrade fiction. I found out about this last week, and decided to use it as the kick-in-the-posterior incentive I needed to finish the book. Due today was a 500-word-or-less "pitch" to be emailed to the editor. She'll ask for the full manuscript for all of the pitches she likes, and she'll choose the best pitch to analyze on her blog so that the rest of us can do better next time. The catch, if she likes the pitch (ha!), is that the full manuscript will be due by July 1.

I have been incredibly productive this week, and the girls have been productive at school because I've been very organized (usually our relative productivities are inversely related). Not only have I created several report programs for clients in my real job, but did some billing, got the vegetables in the garden, wrote my weekly e-newsletter, formatted several new KOA pages, structured and started working with Laura on a new board games review column for KOA...AND at night I've been writing in the book like mad (almost finished with 12 chapters of about 16 or 17), and produced about five iterations of my Perfect Pitch (taking into account comments/criticisms from a couple of trusted friends...thank you, Trusted Friends). I sent it off to the editor today. On time. Now, to finish the rest of the book in 3 1/2 weeks.

I was always good under pressure from deadlines. Not that I want to live life on Full Speed all the time, but I can deal with it occasionally.

Madison's glasses

Madison got glasses yesterday. It made a good opening for my KOA e-newsletter today, so I'm going to reproduce that for your reading pleasure below the pictures.





The big news in the Ross house this week is that Madison got glasses. Now, the fact is, many people have real problems, and so when one puts it all in perspective, no one has any business being too upset over the idea of getting glasses. Madison, understandably, was not thrilled with the idea. She didn't get worked up, but she was quite apprehensive about what she would look like, and she also worried that she would lose or damage them.

Confession: Who was the person most distressed by the idea of Madison getting glasses? I was. I'm pretty sure no one could tell from the outside, but I felt a sinking dismay when we got the verdict from the optometrist last month. You see, I was a bit younger than Madison when I got my first pair, and my eyes gradually worsened all the way into adulthood; I'm now essentially nonfunctional without corrective lenses. It's a pain. I had hoped that my kids would inherit my husband's vision genes, because I didn't want them to have to manage worsening eyesight. On the other hand, today's glasses are dramatically more attractive than they were 30 years ago. And I know, yes I KNOW, that thanks to technology, it's not a big deal. And that's the way I acted with Madison: casual. No big deal. But still.

How relieved I was yesterday when the Glasses Goddess at BJ's in Webster made Madison feel like a Fashion Queen as she fitted the glasses into place on her face for the first time. (BJ's has nice prices on glasses, too, by the way, definitely worth checking out.) Madison was amazed when she put them on. "Wow!" she said several times, as we walked through the store (because who can enter BJ's without shopping). She kept taking the glasses on and off, reading the signs hanging from the ceiling that she could now see. "Is this the way everyone sees?" This of course instantly made me stop feeling sad that my kid was going to have to manage imperfect vision... because, hey, now I felt guilty that we had perhaps waited too long to get the glasses. Ah, motherhood.

I Will Derive -- thanks, Kim!

Kim, at Kim's Play Place, provides an embedded YouTube video today from Kitchen Table Math entitled "I Will Derive."

It's hilarious, especially for us families of mathematicians.

Rather than embed it myself I'm going to send you over to Kim:

http://kimsplayplace.blogspot.com/2008/06/i-will-derive.html

Go to the bathroom first.

The first really tricky social situation

Ella's friend L is over for a play date. Her brother, M, is not.

It's a bit tricky of a situation: Up until about 3 weeks ago, we went over to L's house every week so that L's mother, who is from South America, could teach Spanish to her kids (L, age almost-7, and M, age just-8) and mine. Ella had met L in Montessori preschool when she was 3.

In brief, M is an angry, angry little boy with -- I'm sure -- problems that are defined in the DSM-IV. Since we started these little Spanish classes, he would punctuate the lessons, and the kids' play time outside of lessons, with outbursts of hostility and rudeness. The things he does are things which, had one of my girls done it, FIVE SECONDS into the incident, I would have been hastily packing up the troublemaker and her sister and, with red cheeks, apologizing to the family as we left. Because I'll be darned if my kids are going to be hostile or nasty or rude...not that it's ever happened...but I would never subject someone else to it, and let me tell you, my kid sure wouldn't do it a second time.

Although admitting that M has a problem, the mother is completely passive. She's the worst I've ever seen on laying down rules and consequences and sticking to them. And she thinks that despite M's hostility, despite the fact that he often scowls, "Go away, you're stupid" when the kids (especially Madison, who is closer in age to him) want to play, the mother thinks that he has a right to play with the girls, and that excluding him from their play when he's recently been a brat is mean. Let me tell you, if my girls were even HALF as snotty as that kid, I'd be ORDERING the kids not to play with her. (I am admittedly overly sensitive to this...my sister turned into a horribly snotty adult, and I'll be damned if my kids are going to be anything like her.) I have put up with this because Ella loves L, and because of the Spanish.

In any case, about 3-4 weeks ago, M had been particularly hideous during Spanish. And then later, during play time, he was barging in on the room where Ella and L were playing, and in the confusion Ella tripped and knocked him down, falling on top of him. M decided that Ella had hurt him on purpose, drew back his arm, and HIT HER three times, hard and deliberately. I don't think it was hard enough to make Ella cry, though; at least, she wasn't crying when she came downstairs. (Of course, that's not the point.) It was the first time, apparently, that M had hit someone who wasn't his sister.

We were in the process of leaving anyway, and I didn't really get much of the story on the way out the door. But then, I found out the next day that M had decided that the girls owed HIM an apology for excluding him from their play, and that Ella owed him an apology for tripping on him and knocking him down. My girls were stunned, and very, very upset.

I decided to have the mother over while her kids were at school, so that my girls could talk to her without her being distracted by her own kids. I wanted to engineer having HER say to my girls that it was NOT their fault, that they did the right thing, etc. And I also wanted to engineer the conversation so that the mother, not I, would decide that they would have to stop having M in the mix when the kids played, that instead she would send L over here for a while, until we could be sure that M wouldn't be hitting anyone.

The conversation was stressful for me, as it was for the mother, but I'm sure Madison and Ella didn't notice our discomfort; they were upset enough. I was able to say to them, and the mother echoed that I was right, that IT IS NOT THE GIRLS' RESPONSIBILITY to ensure that M did not hit them. They didn't have to do ANYTHING different, treat him in any special way. "And," I emphasized to them, in the mother's presence, "M will NOT hit you again. That is MY job, to ensure that my girls are not in a situation where someone just might hit them."

"Well, as we can't guarantee that," sighed the mother, "we'll just have to have L over here to play for a while, instead of all of you coming over to my house."

So it worked.

There was no talk of my girls apologizing, at all. I would not have stood for that. But I'm pleased that I was able to salvage the situation without hinting to the girls that Ella couldn't be friends with L anymore. That would have been traumatic. But the fact is, the family is enough messed up that I will begin pulling away from them gradually. Because seriously, when you think of the messed-up kids who shoot up their schools, and imagine what they were like when they were 7 or 8, you're imagining M.

During this conversation, I told the girls that if someone ever hits them deliberately, they are morally justified in hitting them back. They were horrified; they didn't think they could ever do it, and I was sure that was true. "It's usually better just to tell a grownup who can prevent this from happening again," I affirmed. "But nevertheless," I insisted, "You have no MORAL problem with me if you hit back someone who attacks you."

The mother was horrified. "Oh no, those aren't my rules at all," she told the girls. "Your mother and I disagree. If someone hits you, you don't hit back, the right thing to do is you always walk or run away."

Of course, HER kid is the one who is hitting people, not mine. And, she is wrong. Bullies only stop when opposed with force, or viable threat of force.


It's been 3 weeks (possibly even 4) since we saw L, and the girls seem to be playing together well upstairs right now. So, I'll be casual about this for the time being.

This was a hard enough situation for me that I couldn't even bring myself to blog about it for all these weeks.

Hey I'm in the newspaper

The business writer from the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle quoted me in this morning's edition:

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080604/BUSINESS/806040359

Playland franchise considers Greece, East Rochester

A company that has 170 play centers around the country is looking at two locations in the Rochester area for its newest franchise. Pump It Up officials say they have their eyes on East Rochester and Greece for their inflatable-filled playlands.

The two suburbs have the right demographics and logistics for Pump It Up arenas: "a certain level of income, lots of young kids," said Gordon Keil, CEO of Pump It Up. He spoke by phone from company headquarters in the Chicago area.

............

The more the merrier, suggested Debra Ross, operator of the Kids Out and About's Web site, which lists activities for families with children, including indoor arenas and birthday party locations.

"There is no question that here in Rochester, the market is ripe for just these kinds of venues," Ross said. "As wonderful as our children's museums are and as enticing as Chuck E Cheese is for kids, families crave variety. And competition begets innovation, so everyone benefits."

Of course, they didn't print KidsOutAndAbout.com correctly, but I'll take it.

Math worksheet generator

When you make up your own curriculum kind of by the seat of the pants, sometimes you want official worksheets. So you make them up.

The other day, Ella did a review of subtraction with borrowing, and she liked it so much that she wanted some worksheets for them. Normally, I just make them up, but today I'm busy so I did a little research and came up with this nifty free web program for generating custom worksheets for basic operations:

http://www.homeschoolmath.net/worksheets/basic-operations-worksheets.php

Works great. Even generates an answer key so that the child can check her own work. Cool!

The Aurora County All-Stars

We just got through the audio book of Kate Jackson's reading of Deborah Wiles' book The Aurora County All-Stars, which was published last year.

It was terrific, and Kate Jackson's reading really did it justice. A fabulous local color book (about a town in southern Mississippi) that revolves around baseball. We are a baseball family, so that really worked for us. It's a middle-grade book, most appropriate for about 6th graders, I think. Madison would probably not have read it through on her own, because the beginning is a bit confusing...but the audio was wonderful and both girls (who are 7 and 8) thought it was just great. The characters are just gorgeously unique. It's one of those books that translates upward beautifully, and I was perhaps even more involved in the story than they were. We got lucky, this time...I'd never heard of the book and just grabbed it off the shelf in the Penfield Library because I'd never seen it there before. Yay, Penfield Library.

It's about perseverance, and honor, and the need to integrate new truths into one's existing framework even if they shake things up inside you.

The only bad part of it was that it stopped me dead in my tracks on my own book writing, at least it did last night. I kept thinking to myself that I'd never write as well as that...the language in The Aurora County All-Stars paints gorgeous pictures in my mind while mine...doesn't. That got in the way of putting much on the page last night.

I will try again tonight, though, because there is a contest put out on an editor's blog for the "Perfect Pitch" -- this editor, who specializes in mid-grade mystery fiction, is soliciting a short essays about why she should publish your book. That is due on Friday, and the book MUST be completed by July 7.

I can complete my book by July 7 if I just put my fingers to the keyboard and write the darned thing. The most difficult chapter is behind me, and the rest of it is the playing out of the action. It will probably be the most fun part to write, if I can just.do.it. Goodness knows I've thought it through enough, it's been percolating for months. Sigh.

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.