A have a violist

Madison started taking viola lessons a few weeks ago.

It might be startling how quickly she's picked this up if it weren't for the fact that she already plays piano and some flute.

She loves it.

Bonne idée

C'est vrai, une bonne idée.

Thanks to Sue for the costume.

Donating their brains to science

Ella and Madison are really excited because next week, they're going to be subjects in a brain scan test at the University of Rochester's neurodevelopmental lab.

They get to play a computer game while they're getting an MRI of their brain. Isn't that COOL?

What's more, the study then loads them up with gifts after: Each girl will also get a small toy/puzzle from the treasure chest, a larger toy/book/game from the prize shelf, a lab t-shirt, and a picture of her own personal brain.

And a lot of information about what the researchers are doing, and how the brain works.

And... $50. Each.

They were excited even before they found out about the $50. Now, they really can't wait until next Thursday. I don't think they've ever had that much money at one time, before. We just watched the movie that the lab made to show them how the whole MRI thing works.

This should be so interesting.

More poetry

Ella wrote this poem yesterday:

I Am a Snuggly Heater

I am something I like to call a Snuggly Heater.
And the reason I think I am one
Is because sometimes at night I snuggle with my mom
And when we wake up in the morning
She says that I heated her up all night.
And that's why I say
I am a Snuggly Heater.

This week's poem memorization

We decided it was time, for the sake of cultural literacy, to have the girls memorize something from the Bible. The 23rd Psalm was a natural choice.

Just now, to see how well Ella knows the poem, David prompted:

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want..."

Ella didn't miss a beat, and continued: "...to say this poem any more."

The "Getting Embarrassed" phase

Ella has leaped full-force into a phase where she gets embarrassed.

Fortunately, she's not yet at the stage at which *I* embarrass her. (Frankly, I think that one is quite a distance in the future.) No, this stage is characterized by her embarrassment at just about everything that has to do with herself.

Examples: She's embarrassed about the sound of her own voice on tape. She's embarrassed to stumble over a word when she's reading. She's embarrassed on behalf of the villain, sometimes, when Columbo is homing in on the truth. She's embarrassed for me to see her when she's singing in a small group at chorus rehearsal. She's embarrassed at praise. She's embarrassed at love scenes in a movie. She's embarrassed at going first for something in a group.

I think this is a real sign of maturity, a new awareness of herself as someone who simultaneously acts in the world AND doesn't really know what she's doing yet. The second half of that sentence is the new bit. It's the emergence of the "is this the right thing in this situation? Damn, I don't have enough experience to know" filter. I remember the embarrassment that goes with this emerging sense, and the trapped feeling of additional embarrassment about not being able to handle the embarrassment smoothly.

As Ella has gotten older, I watch her starting to project ahead farther into the future. She is starting to realize how far she has to go, I think, before she can be confident in what she's doing, and I think this is part of what is making her skittish and embarrassed. She used to be supremely confident about just about everything, and that's no longer the case. I suspect she implicitly realizes that the standards of behavior won't always be simply externally set by parents; increasingly, she is going to have to start identifying those standards herself. She's not sure how to do this. It really is a very new filter...how to make sure you do the important things right, and how to shake off mistakes quickly for the things you do wrong, at the same time as learning from them.

Although this is difficult for a mother, I actually have decided that I don't want to rob Ella too quickly of the embarrassment, for a couple of reasons. First, because it is *hers*. It's her genuine emotion. I want her to feel what she feels for her own reasons, not because I tell her. If she decides to change her reaction, I want her to do so because she sees that it's reasonable to do so, not simply under pressure from me to slam it back.

Also, it's very useful as a kid to have the regular experience of doing the right thing *in spite of* one's emotions about it. For example, Ella should talk to me about certain things even if it makes her embarrassed to do so, *because* she shouldn't have to deal with things alone at her age (and because she should get in good practice for this when she's an adolescent). It's okay to be embarrassed about whatever it is, I tell her, but you can't let that get in your way of getting it done, you can't let it wilt you. So these small embarrassments can be very useful that way. This way, she both gets validated for the embarrassment ("I remember how hard that was for me, too...") but encouraged to push through it.

Another reason not to slam back the embarrassment is because it can be an extremely useful barometer for helping one do the right thing. Suppressing the emotion of embarrassment at minor infractions could lead to evasion as a mental habit, or unconcern with ethics entirely. I don't think there is much danger of this with Ella, but people *should* be embarrassed about embarrassing things; that's entirely rational. Not pleasant, but rational. Life is not always a bowl of cherries, and age 8 is the perfect time to start dealing with that, in minor and unimportant ways.

So as I've been talking with Ella about these things, my main strategy hasn't been to wipe away her embarrassment. Sometimes she won't tell me for a little while...she needs me to "make" her tell what's on her mind. That's fine, I do that, just patiently smiling and warm, telling her that it will feel a lot better after she has talked with me about it. (It does, too...that's true.)

Second, because I really do vividly remember exactly what this experience was like, I tell her that. Just hearing about how I understand really helps her. Hearing about how everyone else feels this way, too, especially the good people, helps her too. And hearing about how it will eventually just go away and she won't have this experience also helps.

Always, I assure Ella that no matter what, if things ever get hard, she always has us. It doesn't matter if she's 8 or 14 or 40, we can help her get through whatever has to be faced. Sometimes she literally crawls into my arms at that point and buries her beautiful little face in my shoulder. If she hasn't already told me what's worrying her, that usually works.

To be honest, there have been a couple of times that Ella was embarrassed so needlessly that I was able to tell her easily that this can be shaken off very fast. "Oh, you're embarrassed about that there was a grass stain on your coat? Really, Ella, you needn't be...no one gave it another thought, seriously, don't let it get in your way." And then I focus her attention elsewhere.

Unintentional consequences of my school stories

I am not sure what to make of my sensitive little girl Ella.

I showed the girls today some current stories that show the stupidity of "zero tolerance" policies at schools: of the Eagle Scout in upstate NY who was suspended for having a knife locked in the boy scout kit in his car, parked on school grounds, and also the story of the 6-year-old who excitedly brought his new Boy Scout utensil kit so he could eat lunch with it, and was consequently suspended.

I heard a whimper and glanced over at Ella. I was shocked to see the lower lip quivering and the eyes filling with tears at the idea of these injustices happening at school. I hastened to add that the parents of these two boys did what any sensible parent living in a free society would do: alert the media and let the truth of the story shine the light on these idiots. She felt a little better, but still not good. She asked me not to tell her any more.

It's a good thing I didn't tell her about the junior high school girl being strip-searched on suspicion of bringing Advil to school. (That one still really, really rankles me, partly because I can imagine myself being paralyzed if it had happened to me at the age of 13. I WAS one of those evildoers who brought ibuprofen to school, so it could have been me in that position.)

It is fortunate that Ella will not ever have to go to school, because I think I've--totally unintentionally--made her regard the idea with absolute fear and loathing. I guess she's a little young for these ideas. I don't mind her loathing arbitrary rules, but she doesn't need to loathe the idea of school, per se.

Thank goodness my children will never, NEVER have to put up with the crap those other kids must. (And if someone ever tried to hand it to them, boy would such people have some trouble on their hands. They'd have to deal with both me AND David.)

I just asked Madison why she thought Ella got so upset, and Madison told me that Ella was afraid something like that would happen to her at some point. "Doesn't she know that it never will?" I asked. "Daddy and I would never let that happen. And if it did, they'd regret it really quick."

"I don't think *I'll* ever be able to stand up to anyone," she said kind of mournfully.

"Are you kidding me?" I was surprised. "Madison, you're only ten. Trust me, you're being raised by David Ross. You have a tongue like a whip. When you're an adult, there will be none better."

She looked doubtful.

"Seriously," I continued. "But then again, you don't have to worry about standing up for yourself necessarily. We've got your back."

"As long as I want?"

"As long as you want."

Unfortunate homeschoolng math moment

I was working on math with Ella this morning, somewhat late because one of David's students had visited for a few hours at breakfast.

Ella knew this was going to be a shortened schoolwork day because of our visitor and because bowling is early this afternoon.

Nevertheless, there she was, whining at me shortly before lunch. "I wish I only had to do ONE page instead of TWO pages."

I looked at her, annoyed, and said, "You know, someday just for kicks I think I'll give you a taste of a REAL school day. We'll start at 8am, we'll end at 3, I'll give various lectures and you can sit still and listen, you'll do your work, and then afterward you can do your homework. How's that sound?"

She burst into tears.

Really not my proudest moment.

Ultimately, she will not be a mumbler, damn it!

Madison seems to have adopted a habit recently of looking at the ground and mumbling when she's talking with someone she's just met. She's not bad at the initial handshaking, but then she lapses. I know it's because she feels awkward and wants to say the right thing...or, more important, she doesn't want to say the wrong thing. But it has been driving me a little nuts, lately. I really am vehement that the kids will not grow up to be mumblers. I actually had to remind her today to look at who she was speaking it.

Ella doesn't do this, despite being shyer than Madison.

I think I'm just going to have to be better in the few minutes before they meet someone new, at reminding them how to do it.

A taste of the office

I do love this work-home life I've carved out for myself. I really do. I haven't worked at an office in 14 years. And I'm happy that I don't. I never want to again.

But...

It so happened that I stayed extra-long at the radio station today after I was on the air, because I got into a chat with one of the DJs and the program director. We talked about some ideas for upcoming mutual promotions. It was just like the kind of feedback and professional visibility that I used to get around the water cooler back at the publishing company I used to work at in the early 1990s. I almost didn't want to leave.

They invited me out to lunch in 10 days or so, just for fun. And you know, I'm really looking forward to it. It's not just networking, although it kind of is networking. It touched the businessperson in me in a way that hasn't happened in a very long time, even though I've had lots of lunches with clients. We scheduled it for a day that the girls are at an all-day homeschooling camp.

Don't worry, I'm not going to send the girls to school. But it did drive home to me how very much more I could accomplish during the workday if my business colleagues weren't 8 and 10 years old. And, that if I incorporate a little more of this into the work-life balance, that would be a good thing.

Overextended

The name of the game in the Ross house is: Overextended 2009!

Both David and I are playing that game this fall, and it's no picnic. I know I'm writing a lot less than I used to; blogging is one of the things I finding it difficult to justify, even though I have all these analyses going on in my head all the time, things I'd like to record about the girls' development and experiences. One thing that ISN'T falling by the wayside, though, is the girls' education, thanks in part to some of their new classes. Ella in particular is at a new stage.

Ella's music education (and, consequently, conceptual learning) has been thrust ahead by her acceptance into the Bach Children's Chorus, and the discipline and practice required to be proficient. This is Madison's third year in the BCC. When Ella suddenly decided to audition at the end of the summer, David and I nearly gave her a lecture about how she really would have to be serious about this, how this is a commitment to real work. But we decided to hold off on talking with her about this until we saw how she took it. Thankfully (and somewhat surprisingly, since Ella doesn't typically launch energetically into new experiences, especially if they involve work), the lecture wasn't at all necessary. She's working hard at chorus; she's very disciplined, enjoys it a lot, never whines about having to practice, and is leaping ahead in the same way that Madison did two years ago.

Thanks to the fact that she can now read, Ella is finding new experiences open to her in ways that they weren't last year. She'd never be able to do chorus if she were still at last year's reading level. But also, she's having no trouble in drama class, which she would have had she taken it first semester last year; no one even has to make reading allowances for her as they did second semester last year. Today, she participated in this great art-history-literature-research class that the Fabulous Adrienne the Librarian at Webster Library has designed; Ella talked enthusiastically about how she was able to research more information about Paul Revere's Ride with a little guidance from the librarians. (Last year, she would have been in over her head at that part.)

And this year, I decided to make Ella WORK in math in a way that simultaneously cuts back on the amount of preparation I have to do. So we've started using a fifth-grade textbook that is only so-so, but fine for our purposes. Ella is pretty proud about doing fifth-grade math in the third grade, and that alone drives her along even when she's not necessarily feeling like working. That, and we go through the information together. I will admit to some guilt feelings about not designing the curriculum specifically to her needs, to taking the easy way out here. But she's learning plenty, and I get to see where her gaps are, which I might not have thought of had I not been using a guide.

Ella is still apt to get overwhelmed too easily, and take the easy-whiny way out ("I can't do this") whereas if she were in school, she'd buck up and push through it. That -- the crying -- is one of the down sides of home schooling. But for all of her whining and moaning about how she can't do something (I can't decide if it's a lot or a little, sometimes it seems like a lot, even though overall she is not a whiny child, she's cheerful almost to a fault), I know she's a lot more confident than she'd be if she were in school and were constantly being compared with the rest of the class. Whereas Madison's competitive drive to be the best would work to her advantage, I think Ella (who doesn't have the same drive) might tend to sink into mediocrity. This way, Ella gets to be Ella, happy to learn even if she's not pursuing knowledge relentlessly. Of course, I'll make darned sure she knows what she needs to know before launching in life.

And now, back to work. Or maybe to sleep.

Tag's grammar

Madison has a new stuffed dog named Tag. Tag is a big, very cuddly, Bernese Mountain Dog.

Madison: "Tag convinced Ella to read him a book out loud."

David: "Madison, we never convince someone TO do something, we convince someone OF something or convince someone THAT they should do something."

Madison: "Well, tell that to Tag."

New strategy for fiction writing

I've been in a slump, recently, about getting the Frontier Team published. The Summer of Rejection really took it out of me. And I have some revisions that I'd like to make to Book 1, specifically to make the main character more vivid and recede the other characters a bit. So it seemed that I should hold off on trying to get it published until I made the revisions, and then I got paralyzed about making the revisions...and more rejections came in... you can imagine.

So, at least partly in response to the "too wholesome" criticisms I seemed to be receiving from the hip agents who were rejecting me, I started my own personal rebellion against wholesomeness: I started writing another book, a book that I had vowed to write when I was nine years old, in response to what I perceived to be (and what in many ways was) parental tyranny: My Father the Health-Food Nut. I've been thinking about rebellion for many years, and trying to make distinctions between the right kind of rebellion (acting on principle to create a condition proper to humankind even if social forces are against you) and the wrong kind of rebellion (stamping your foot and wailing because you don't like something). The kids in this book use the American Revolution as a guide in their quest for independence and self-determination.

So, thanks to encouragement from my writing buddy Adrienne, I decided to hold off on completing Frontier Team Book 2 until my Book 1 revisions were done, but I'm also writing this other book because it's a heck of a lot more fun than revisions.

Getting the oomph to make the Book 1 revisions was getting me down, though...couldn't seem to find it. But Ella, blessed Ella, might have saved me. She finally, finally, is interested in The Frontier Team. So we started reading it together today.

We finished Chapter 1. "More, more!" she cried excitedly.

We read Chapter 2. "Keep going, don't stop" Ella said again. We had to set it aside then, though; I thought I'd end it on a cliffhanger to keep her interested. It seems to be working.

And, reading it aloud is helping me see good stuff to cut.

As a matter of principle, the kids are not means to my ends, of course. But they do come in awfully handy sometimes.

Talking Hands and the Answer Swan

Ella has recently been doing what started as an impromptu shadow skit the other week, but which has become a regular feature of our bedtime routine: Talking Hands.

We do it in my bedroom: She turns off all of the lights and then turns on just the tiny reading lamp that David uses when I'm asleep. She projects that onto the wall and then uses her hands as shadow puppets: the Talking Hand family! The mom, the big brother, the little sister, and two dogs, Pinky and Ringo. You'd think that her skits would be like other kids of skits that kids make up: You know, the kind for which you paste on a smile while you're wincing inside. But actually, Ella is hysterical! I think she takes a page from Jim Henson in her characterizations. The brother is sneaky and always getting into trouble by locking his sister in the closet and lying to his mother about it, the little sister is by no means beleaguered; she takes the locking up with good humor and a healthy dose of revenge, and she loves to train the dogs. What's funniest is when Mom Hand finds out about the brother's nightly perfidy: Ella brings the mom hand closer to the light source so she is huge, and looms over the brother in size as the brother glumly accepts his fate.

I think this might have gotten started because of the Birthday of the Day, oddly enough. We review the Birthday of the Day in the morning at the breakfast table, and at dinner we see how much they remember (for every correct answer, they get a nickel). Well, when we ask a question at dinner (Question: What did Hank Williams die of? Answer: Drugs and alcohol), in the past the kids have almost fallen over themselves waving their hands wildly in the "pick me, pick me" manner of schoolkids. So we started trying to get them to be a little more graceful with the admonition to "Raise your hand like a swan."

Ella started doing complying, but with a twist: When she knows the answer, she makes a "swan" shape with her hand and forearm and starts gliding it around, opening and closing the beak. We've taking to calling her "Answer Swan" at these moments. (Madison mostly still forgets to be calm...we've taken to calling her "Answer Rocket" as her hand shoots up into the air.) Anyway, the Answer Swan looks a lot like the Talking Hand family that has now become a new tradition in our house during Comedy Hour...um...I mean bedtime.

Children of the electronic age

Madison had been wanting to call her friend Max all morning.

She did so a few minutes ago. It was a very short call.

From what David and I can piece together, apparently they decided that what they needed to communicate could be better done by email. Madison put the phone down and raced up to her computer.

Simply happy

The girls and I were talking about this past summer, and we all agreed it was the best summer ever. Not just because of the trip to Yellowstone, although that was cool beyond words. And not just because we did tons of other interesting stuff. And not because I got a lot of work done, progress made on lots of projects (though not fiction writing, so much). We had relaxed down time, too. We played tetherball. The kids didn't go to camp. Madison started flute lessons and joined the tournament team at karate. The weather was great, no heat waves at all...I think it got about 90 only once or twice the whole summer. Madison even wrote a poem about "my summer vacation" our first day back to official school, which was Wednesday.

I think it was the best summer ever because we have slid into a groove. A nice groove. No more moving (not for the next 10 years, I hope!), no more settling in, no more figuring out of career paths, Ella can read, and Madison has thoroughly gotten over the jittery period of age 5-7-or-8 where you never knew whether she was going to try to read too much into something and it would send her over the edge. There was less developing and more enjoying. We didn't do school, but of course we did the Birthday of the Day and everyone read every day and the girls wrote in their summer journals and we did the brainy talk that we always do that is full of our lives anyway. I can't think of any way that the summer could have been improved, aside from, you know, the political situation in the world beyond our four walls, which doesn't touch the girls' lives anyway.

Of course, ex-Catholic that I am, I have a tendency to project ahead into the future, which slightly mars the warm glow of this summer with the fact that it is ending. Maybe...probably... I will someday look at the misery around me and long desperately for sometime BEFORE... I'll long for the Summer of 2009, when the girls were young and I was still actively their mother and they were happy, happy, happy... before hormones kicked in and then they went to college, off to their own lives, and before I lost my purpose AIIIEEEEE. Let's not do that.

I mostly succeed at banishing these thoughts and living in the moment, especially when the moment has them snuggled up in my bed with me watching an old episode of Columbo on the laptop. Or when we're on the couch and they're listening raptly to me reading the Penderwicks. Or when we're playing 2-against-1 at tetherball.

Someday they will be big enough to beat me at tetherball. But not yet.

Madison is 10.

In this morning's weekly e-newsletter to my KOA list, I took a rare moment to indulge myself in public thoughts about Madison's birthday:

Ten years ago today, in the wee hours of the morning, something magical happened. After 21 hours of labor, during most of which I was elated that the baby would be born on 9-9-99, Madison May Ross made her long longed-for entrance into the world the morning of September 10, and my life was forever changed. I had had all kinds of romantic visions of what childbirth would be like, how spiritually uplifting it would be, how I would always tell the baby that her birth day was the most wonderful day of my life. Well, of course, that was one of those bubbles that burst with the living of it--all of us parents have them, many times over, I've since learned. That's okay, though. The actual living of her life is much more important than the details of her birth.

These milestone ages--double digits!--provide a handy reason to pause and take stock, don't they? I've been doing that this week. One of the secrets of parenthood that I've learned in the living of it these past 10 years, but which people in the media rarely say because it sounds so boring and practical, is that the parenting issues I prepare for in advance are the things that tend to work out best. If I think about what's coming up in the girls' lives, gather information about it, read about it, talk about it with others I trust, and ponder its implications deeply, I am able to align what I do with reality, with my child's unique nature, with my principles firmly in mind. The things that blindside me don't work out so well. So, like many parents, I try to think hard about and plan for the things that are mostly under a parent's control. I think minimally about the potential disasters that wake us mothers in 2am cold sweats, and use those times to remind myself of how fortunate I am to have these precious people in my life. And, of course, I try every day to enjoy what there is to be enjoyed--that's partly what KidsOutAndAbout.com is about, isn't it?--to show my kids that our goal is to make life as happy, healthy, and productive as possible. So, happy 10th birthday, Madison, my love, my life.

I try not to get too preachy in my newsletter. Yes, I feel that I have a lot of answers to questions that most parents aren't even asking, but hitting people over the head with brainy or strongly-worded opinions will only alienate them. Instead, I want people just to feel that my ideas ARE their ideas...I don't want them to think that *I'm* smart, I want *them* to feel smart when they read what I have to say. But of course what I'm saying, when you distill it to its essence, is rather extreme. THINK, people. PLAN. Align your goals with REALITY. Don't fly along by the seat of your pants just hoping everything works out okay. THINK LIKE HELL. Children are not simply means to your ends. It's your responsibility to see that they grow up happy and healthy and productive. Have principles, and stick to them.

Anyway, on the 10th anniversary of Madison's birth, I took the opportunity to indulge myself a little. And I got a couple of nice notes in response.

At the end, I also added a few comments about 9/11. Last year I forgot to do so, and a reader wrote in wishing I had recognized it. So today I wrote:

As everyone knows, tomorrow is September 11, the eighth anniversary of the tragedies in New York, D.C., and Pennsylvania. May I take a moment to thank, publicly, all of the people whose work keeps us safe? Police, firefighters, EMTs, and those in the military -- and, also, their families, who every day recognize the risks that their courageous loved ones are facing. The significance of the events of September 11 was driven home to me much more profoundly because I had children. So when I look at my girls and take solace in their safety, I remember the people much braver than I who are willing to put their lives on the line to keep our country safe and free. They deserve my gratitude. They have it.

Harry Potter Party

The big Harry Potter party was a success! I think everyone had a good time, no problems with the kids, no one felt left out or anything, I think.

Here was the itinerary, heavily influenced by the Great Lynne, who sent me a bunch of ideas from *her* HP party for her own daughter:

Sorting hat: Hand out cards saying which house you were in. This was important for the Quidditch game later.

Diagon Alley, Olivander's.: Wand decorating; Decorate a little pot for Herbology later

The Care of Magical Creatures: Hagrid's baby dragon egg hunt in the back yard

The Magic Guy (a smart-ass magician who's quite popular around here)

Potions: Make yourself a drink by mixing a potion from seven different ingredients: Orange soda, root beer, ginger ale, 7-up, grape juice, apple juice, V8 Splash

Time Turner: Personalize magic calendar (cute thing I got at Oriental Trading Company...a little calendar that had that black coating you can scratch off, revealing the rainbow colors underneath

Herbology: Plant some herbs in your new pot (thanks to my friends Will and Sue who took charge of this event!)

Professor Trelawny: Fortune Telling with the Magic 8 Ball (We didn't get to this! And I even got a Magic 8 Ball, too! But we love the Magic 8 Ball!)

Quidditch, Madison style (essentially Capture the Flag with two golden snitches I made from tennis balls sprayed gold)

Charms: “Habeas felicitatem in die natale sua." ("May you have happiness on your birthday." Got my friend who is a Latin scholar to give it to me precisely, and spelled out phonetically, too.)

Cake

A few photos:

Everyday activism moment

I had a really proud Everyday Activism moment today:

This morning, I drew the names of the winners of the vacation getaway packages I got venues to donate to KidsOutAndAbout.com for my big newsletter membership drive. It resulted, in the month of August, in about 500 new readers, which I think is pretty good!

And this morning I got to spread joy by calling up the various winners and telling them what they won (overnights in various fun locations driveable from Rochester). How excited and happy people were! But with one caller, the joy was mine, too. She told me that she'd been thinking of writing ME an email, because thanks in large part to the inspiration my newsletter has been providing her for years in small ways, she decided this summer to pull their kids out of school and homeschool instead. "You showed me that it can be done," she said. "I'm really looking forward to it."

Wow.

It's not that I actually advocate for homeschooling in the newsletter; I don't hit people over the head with it at all, I never make snide remarks about public schooling or anything. I don't even say explicitly how much I love it. I just highlight some of the great homeschooling resources in our community, and make no secret about the fact that we do it.

It works, fellow homeschoolers. Just be your happy, confident, normal selves, obvious contributors to the community. People will want to be you. And their kids will benefit.

And so homeschooling moves away from the fringe and more into the mainstream.

P.S. I just got a lovely compliment from the marketing director of one of the organizations I've been working with to bring SteveSongs here to Rochester later this month. She wrote: "You are the best "ball of fire" for this community! Don't ever move away!" I just thought I'd share. Everyday activism, even on this tiny scale, helps to keep my spirits up when sometimes it seems like the wider society is going to hell.

Animals two ways

This afternoon, Madison heard me reading to David a passage from Temple Grandin's book Animals in Translation, which I've been finding quite fascinating in places.

Madison was very interested, and asked if she could read the book. I said sure, and handed it over. She spent a while with it, and has decided to go back and read it from the beginning.

Yeah. She'll be 10 in 2 weeks.

This same girl is also perfectly delighted to initiate a family snuggle on the bed and play "Mommy and Daddy Saint Bernard and Two Puppies" before we all settle in for the night.

I revel in my good fortune. Truly, the best of both worlds: a growing up girl who still loves a good snuggle and being nosed by the Mommy Dog.

Present perfect

For some reason, we got into a discussion at the dinner table about the verb "to eat" and its various permutations.

"I eat," I dictated. "I am eating. I ate. I have eaten. I had eaten."

I was finished (having, I now realize, forgotten the future tenses). But there was one more. Suddenly, from Ella:

"I am being eaten."

Milestones

I was saying on my Facebook status this morning that it somehow seems to me that the five milestones of child development are:

1) Is potty-trained.
2) Hops in the car with no extra gear re...quired, fastens own seat belt.
3) Can be sent to play "outside somewhere."
4) Enjoys two hours of violin and piano music without fidgeting.
5) Gets job and supports self.


Obviously, I was kind of kidding about #5, but #4 is a real milestone that I don't think everyone can achieve. Given that I love concerts, I'm fortunate to have had kids with the constitutions to be able to achieve it, and pretty early to boot. I know there are stories of musicians whose kids have been attending concerts since Day One and know how to behave at them and will just sit there and listen with rapt attention at the age of three, but I've always been pretty skeptical about these as well as jealous. I figure age 8 and 10 are about the right age for mine.

Last night, we were at a concert featuring a solo pianist playing Debussy and Tschaikovsky, a solo violinist playing something by an early-20th-century composer named Eugene Ysaye--who was fortunately an admirer of Beethoven rather than Stravinsky, so it was easy on the ears, and a quartet playing Mendelssohn.

It was, I think, the first concert where I could focus more on the music than on how the children were doing. We've done a lot of classical music stuff in the past year, mostly because of Madison's involvement with the Bach Children's Chorus. (At least one of them (Messiah) got so late that Audience Member Ella needed to go home at intermission.) But I can't think of anything that we went to just as a family to go hear some classical music. David and I have seen other performances on our own in the last 12 months, but I guess we've just figured we'd have a better time without them, not to mention the needless expense of buying tickets for bored kids. So last night was kind of a first.

When I see live music performed, I get very involved in the music. I usually focus on the cellists, given that I play cello (sort of). But I'm not great at focusing on more than one thing at a time, so I'm sure that part of the reason we haven't brought the kids to these things before is that I didn't want the distraction of having to focus on them at the same time as the music.

I said it was the first concert where I could focus MOSTLY on the music, I didn't say entirely. At least 40% of my attention, especially during the second half, was focused on making sure that Ella could lean against me comfortably as her energy started to ebb...after all, normally she'd be asleep at that time. I *really* didn't want her to squirm or fidget, because that makes for a bad experience for those sitting behind us. And I *really* wanted her experience of the concert to be positive, because then it makes the next one that much easier. So, I confess, enough of my brain was focused on the kids' experience that I couldn't really enjoy the Mendelssohn.

It's easy enough to say, "Get a grip, Deb, relax and don't worry about the kids, or how they behave, they're fine, they'll squirm a bit, it doesn't matter. Don't let it detract from your own enjoyment of the music." Sorry. I know this is the right way to do it, but I just. can't. do. it. I figure it's better to face that up front.

Next time it will be easier for me, I'm sure. And eventually they'll enjoy it so much that I can ignore them entirely. I hope.

The pianist soloist was a 12-year-old prodigy who is at Juilliard. Madison was equally impressed with his playing and with the fact that he started taking college classes when he was 5. 5! Her eyes were round. Age 5! She couldn't get over it.

--------------------------------

In other classical-music news, Ella has decided to join the Bach Children's Chorus. Madison joined when she was 8, but I just didn't think Ella was ready for it. You see, you have to have a passion for this kind of thing in order to carry yourself through the discipline and rigor of all of the practicing. Madison has always had it. She loves a challenge. She rises to the occasion. Ella just tends to go with the flow and enjoy life. She sang with the BCC on their trip to DC this past May, mostly because they needed more people and the repertoire was limited and she could do it. But I didn't push her to join, and she kept saying she'd probably do it next year when she's 9. I didn't mind at all, because the last thing I need for our home schooling day is to add in something else to make the kid do. I definitely didn't want to deal with whining, and have to shell out some bucks for the privilege, to boot.

But then, on Thursday morning, Ella surprised us all by saying she wanted to join. She wanted to go to Chorus Camp with Madison that day. She knew what she was getting into, she said, and she was ready.

Well, okay! Go for it, girl.

The director is going to make her go through the whole audition process in the next couple of weeks before official rehearsals start. Okay, I see the point, but now I have to get the child prepared for the audition. Readers of this blog will remember that I actually broke out in hives helping Madison get ready for that audition 2 years ago. That won't happen this time, though, because the director is going to accept Ella...Ella can sing and the chorus needs the extra bodies and the money...and she won't want to alienate me, either, even though I'm no longer president of the board of directors. So it will be a bit much to whip the child into shape on the Bach and Handel pieces she needs to know, but we'll do it.

And, I have to say, Ella was great, yesterday. She kept requesting over and over in the car to hear the piece she doesn't know, and was practicing and practicing. She's in tune great...she may be a natural soprano where Madison and I are altos, she hits the high A effortlessly...but she's a kind of whisper-singer, I can't hear her that well. I figure I'll let the director deal with volume, and just focus on getting her to know the stuff inside and out.

So, Ella is taking something really seriously, possibly for the first time. I don't think she'll even need a lecture about how once she starts this she needs to finish it, she can't weasel out in the middle or whine about it. She really knows that already, I think. I hope I'm right.

-----------------------------------


And now for something entirely different...

We're going on a Bat Hike tonight! One of the girls' favorite naturalists is leading one. I tried to get in at the nature center on Wednesday, but the guy told me that it was closed, they were all full. But Liz is letting us in, telling us that "there is always room for the Ross family." I feel so honored.

Hurray for freedom of the press

It's still legal here in the U.S. My friend Reena posted this:

http://llph.typepad.com/life_liberty_the_pursuit_/2009/08/equality-for-all.html

Utterly American.

I may have taught her too much

Madison and Ella are playing with Ella's Littlest Pet Shop set.

They decided to have the little animals do a play, choreographed and everything.

Madison started making up a song that the mice should sing to introduce themselves.

I proposed that they just use the "Square Dancing Mice" song from SteveSongs. They like that song, and it seemed to be perfect for the purpose.

"Mom, Mom, we considered that," said Madison. "But there was a copyright dispute."

I had the perfect face for radio this morning

Yesterday, the media group that owns several radio stations in town asked me to become a regular on Friday mornings, on two of their most popular stations...starting TODAY.

Of course, I said yes. I like being on the radio. The exposure is priceless. And it went very, very well; I hadn't expected it, but for one of the stations (WARM 101.3), I basically blended in to become just part of the gang on the radio for an hour or so, from 7:40-8:40. I'm so happy that I now get to do this every week! And they even gave me my own parking spot in the garage...B-80. Whoa.

I will confess to a bordering-on-irrational love of successful P.R.

Oh, and speaking of successful P.R., here is a link to yesterday's News 10 NBC spot on KidsOutAndAbout.com. MSNBC even picked it up! It's been quite a week.

"Required"

We got an unofficial-looking white folded-over-and-taped printout today from our local school district's office, from a heretofore-unknown-to-me "Census" department.

Dear Resident:

For planning and reporting purposes, it is required

Oh-ho! Required, is it? By what? By whom?

that the District know about all children in our district from birth to age 18 and if the child receives special education, from birth to 21.

If there are no changes it is NOT necessary to return this form.

Now, there's know about, and KNOW about. What does it all mean? There is no reference to what, by law, they need to know.

What they do "know" on the form is this: The girls' names, birthdates, gender, ethnicity, grade in 2009-2010, and the school they attend. (Interestingly, the school that is listed for them is:

Private School (Home Schooled)

I kinda like that wording.

But here's the catch: They got their birthdays wrong. That's right, some careless clerk made a typo on each girls' birthday (though they got the birth YEAR right for each).

The question is: Do I notice this? And, if I do notice it, am I actually legally obligated at this time to try to correct for the District's typo on this document? (It's clearly a typo...they got the same, incorrect, birthday.) I have to say, from a security perspective, I'm not too interested in documents winging around through the district with all of my girls' identifying info on it. Might be kinda nice just to leave the birth date wrong. The girls' quarterly reports and IHIPs have their correct birthdays on them, so I figure I'm probably covered legally, as I tell them the correct birthdays six times each year.

If there is a child living in your home that [sic] you suspect has a handicapping condition [sic] and has not been previously identified by the school for this condition, please check this box.

Fat chance.

Questions? Call the Census Department at____

Seriously considering asking them to show me the law.

Who says you can't go home?

I've been traveling with the girls for the past week, that's why I haven't blogged for a while. It was a hectic trip, but also the kind of trip where every night I looked around and thought how nice it was to be there, wherever "there" was that evening.

I brought the girls out to New Jersey first for a few days of fun with the sane branch of my family, then dropped them off at my friend Tatiana's in PA while I went up to visit/take care of my friend Anne who lives in New York's Hudson Valley and is about to have Baby #4.

During the course of the trip, I did a lot of criss-cross driving through New Jersey, the state of my birth and upbringing. I left NJ about 15 years ago, and since then have mostly felt aversion at the idea of going back, even for visits or for business. Rochester has been home in a way that NJ never was, never could be. I felt that the state had ground me down, not least because it is obscenely expensive to live in, the people as a whole are not particularly friendly or welcoming, and you spend much of what could be productive time sitting in traffic that sucks the life out of you. And though working in New York City for 4 years in my early 20s was a great experience, it too was intimidating. It was never *my* city. Leaving was the right thing to do.

But this week, there I was, age 40, driving through the Garden State by myself with the radio on.

Today's radio stations play LOTS of 80s music, and the New York City area is no exception. It was the music as much as the setting that plunged me right back into a vivid experience of what it was like to be Adolescent Deb. I heard Bon Jovi on the radio, and I remembered *exactly* what it was like to be 14, how I felt about the adults and kids I knew, what my take on the world was like then. The struggle to figure out what was the right thing to do, without guidance. The struggle to try to get through life and school without dissolving.

As I've said before on this blog, I was very different sort of person then. But now, I have an adult's understanding of what it all meant. And I'm old enough now that while I was absorbed in these memories this past week, I found that, remarkably, I could be both people simultaneously.

When I was a teenager and trying to figure everything out, I used to imagine myself older--35!--and life-toughened, going back in time to advise and comfort Teenage Deb. "What would I do if I were really, really wise? I used to ask myself. "I'll KNOW how to manage this in 20 years, but maybe I can just IMAGINE it now." I tried to be both people simultaneously then, too, but I was limited to what a 15-year-old could know.

Of course, as principled adults do, I've dissected my childhood for 20 years to determine what was right about it and what was wrong, and to decide what I'd replicate with my own kids and what I'd replace. But when I was in NJ this week, I suddenly felt that I could understand this in living color, not just theoretically. The experience brought back details that I'd forgotten, especially nice details that I'd suppressed in an attempt to put it all behind me. I understood, viscerally, the absolute necessity to a healthy later emotional life of not subjecting kids to too many things they have to endure; otherwise, ALL of the memories are clouded, even the good ones. In other words, "Well, at least it builds character" is pretty much bullshit.

This time, driving through New Jersey and New York City, it hit me that I was looking at it all with fresh eyes. In the intervening years, without realizing it, I'd somehow conquered New Jersey and New York. Really. It wasn't just that I drove into the city, which I'd done lots of times before when I was working there, but that I was doing it almost on a whim, to get a hair cut, and managing the traffic, tolls, and parking rates--not to mention what it costs for a Lexington Avenue trim--without blinking. The Big Apple had become No Big Deal.

When I was 23, I'd looked at that magnificent skyline from my bathroom window in Weehawken somewhat wistfully. The City meant hopes, dreams, possibilities, mystery. It was also edgy, and tough, and scary, and somehow inaccessible even though I was there every day. But this past Tuesday, as I was rounding the curve into the Lincoln Tunnel, I saw it differently. I felt sad, as I always do, seeing the gap where the Twin Towers should be. But I also saw the skyline prosaically. It was a place where I'd lived, and worked, and developed, and succeeded, and left. The 15 years from age 10 through age 25, without fanfare, clicked into a new place for me. New Jersey is now much more simply the place where I made the best of a bad situation than the scene of a tragic movie.

And how about those Bon Jovi songs that set these thoughts in motion? It was a "Two-Fer Tuesday" block of Bon Jovi: First, "Livin' on a Prayer" from 1986, and then "Who Says You Can't Go Home?" from 2005.

Almost poetic.

Something else you can get if you ask

Ella has dance camp on Tuesday mornings this summer. Somehow, it became a ritual to take her to the nearby McDonald's afterward on the way home. Not a healthful ritual, obviously. But a pleasurable one.

Two weeks ago, Ella got a Happy Meal with a Teeny Beany Baby. A sheep. You get the little stuffed animal, and then you can go online and create a persona for it, earn points during games so you can buy it things, etc. She was entranced with this sheep. She made a terrific online pink bedroom room with a bunk bed for Fluffy at Ty.com.

Well, last week, after dance camp, she wanted to try for another Teeny Beany Baby. She wanted a sheep to go with Fluffy. So she asked, "Do you just have to take what McDonald's gives you?" I said we could go inside and ask them rather than go through drive-through.

So we got up to the front counter, and I asked the young woman taking our order, "Um, is there any choice of Teeny Beany Babies, by any chance?"

"Well..." she said, rummaging through her supply of bags. "I got the skunk, I got two Grimaces, I got a Ronald, I got the sheep..."

"The SHEEP!" Ella and I both exclaimed excitedly at the same time. The young lady jumped a foot in the air and started laughing. Madison, of course, was embarrassed.

I felt, well, rather sheepish.

But Ella, Fluffy, and Puffy are very happy together.

You never know what you can get if you ask.

What you get if you ask

I was a very shy, geeky, introverted kid. Yes, really. People look skeptical when I tell them this, but it's true. I was never taught about how to BE around people; no one ever verbalized skills such as: "Stand up straight, look someone in the eye, and smile as you shake their hand confidently." I tended to fold in on myself. But I changed all that very deliberately when I was about 18, and grew into a style that I'm comfortable with.

One thing I never knew as a kid, because I was never taught to talk to people, is what you can get if you just ask. Or, more precisely, what you can get if you cheerfully offer "value for value." It's an aspect of the beauty of capitalism, only without cash.

Now, I'm not talking about asking for handouts, for people to be generous with me out of the kindness of their heart because I need something that they have. No, I'm really talking about how it's important to connect with people who have something I can use, and that their giving it to me actually benefits them.

Of course, to get stuff, you have to give stuff.

In my case, what I can offer is visibility and great public relations through my web site. This week, my project was to get hotels and attractions to give me free packages to give away to KidsOutAndAbout.com readers as part of a big campaign I'm doing to get more subscribers to my Thursday morning e-newsletter. So far, in just three days of casual work on this, I have FIVE great packages donated for overnight vacations to various places within driving distance of Rochester. All I had to do was connect with managers personally, explain easily what I can give them (lots of visibility to exactly the market they're looking to attract) and ask for them to donate. And they did, with pleasure.

Similarly, going on the radio gives my web site a lot of exposure whenever I do it. So I asked my main radio personality contact, Marti Casper of 93.3, if she'd like me on next week. (I get visibility, they get a cheerful, articulate, I-love-Rochester guest.) Not only did she say yes, but she told me that one of their sister stations was asking her to let me know the next time I'm on, so THEY could have me on too.
(Update: The media group that owns both radio stations has just asked if I would consider being on every Friday!)

The point (and why this is a really good lesson to teach to kids) is: None of this would happen if I didn't ASK, and ask again, all the while happily and in a non-pushy way offering something I know is valuable. Even though folks like the radio station know I exist and like having me on, they rarely initiate having me on, it's usually me telling them I'm available if they want me.

So what I want my kids to take away from this: The idea that "if you build it they will come" is pretty much a pie-in-the-sky platitude. Build it, absolutely. Make it great. And then promote it like heck, but make sure not to be a pain in someone else's neck while you do it. It's a delicate balance.

It's important to keep both parts of this concept in mind for Everyday Activism, too: To be successful at changing the world, you need to build something whose value is attractive to others, and you need to promote it happily and cheerfully rather than defensively or bitterly.

Silvia is probably a better homeschooling mom than I am

Silvia, a nice hs-ing mom I met when we lived in Charlottesville for a year-and-a-half a few years ago, is far more hip than I. She and her kids are raising scorpions.

I always say I'd go to the ends of the earth and back for my kids, but this is something I would never, ever do. Just, no.

No in an "I-can't-vaguely-imagine-doing-this-even-though-it's-so-darned-cool-in-theory" kind of way. No in a "despite-all-of-the-valuable-experience-I'm-robbing-my-kids-of" kind of way.

I console myself with the idea that it's good to know one's limits.

Sorry, girls.

Three more agents to reject me before I try again

Three agents I met at the conference in late May still have my manuscript. As of today, they have had it for eight weeks.

Eight.

Yes.

Apparently, this is par for the course in publishing. I almost prefer the prompt rejections. Publishing etiquette doesn't permit me even a teeny-weeny hey-I'm-still-out-here-and-you-have-my-manuscript-maybe-it-got-lost? email to the agent for another four weeks! It's like that part of life is on hold. A manuscript held hostage.

I'm going to get old waiting for this to get published.

No matter, I'm slammed this summer anyway, what with real clients requesting real work (that THEY want to see back to them WELL before eight DAYS has elapsed, thank you very much, none of this eight-week nonsense), and with the slam-one-technological-door-open-another-and-run-right-through-it quality that this summer has had as I work to expand KidsOutAndAbout.com outside of New York. So I haven't had that much time to write...

except I've done my best. I've even started another book. A snappier book. A hipper book. One that is less 1950's and more 2000's (to quote from one of my stack of Frontier Team rejections). One that could actually win awards. One whose topic will be actually controversial, even--probably--with my writing buddy.

But no worries, Frontier Team fans (all four of you!), I'm still working on Book Two. Max is gonna solve that mystery, yes he is. I just have to work out the details. And, you know, finish writing the thing. In my copious spare time. As my own personal comedy duo sings "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" in the background.

(Hey, come to think of it, maybe that's not a bad whodunnit topic...)

The bodies of the mangled mourning doves litter the baseball diamond. Eager Little Leaguers arrive for practice, gloves in hand, but flee in tears at the carnage before them. Turkey vultures circle overhead, hoping for an opportunity to dart in and seize a corpse for an afternoon snack. The parents eye the scavengers warily as they herd their permanently scarred players back into the minivans. Is it a job for The Frontier Team?

No, no, it most definitely is not. I don't even write that way, for pity's sake.

I think I'd better go to bed.

The DS2

Madison and Ella have started a singing/dancing troupe which they are calling the "DS2" which stands for Dancing-Singing-2.

For the last three days, they have been rehearsing for about 45 minutes to an hours (seriously!) choreographing fun and funny routines to songs they know. We get a new routine each night. They dress in black and white, or all white, or all black, and wear black top hats.

The first day, the routine was to Tom Lehrer's "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park." Then Cole Porter's "They All Laughed." And last night they chose "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious."

They call themselves "Hope (Ella) and Joy (Madison), the D...S...2!" They are remarkably like Penn and Teller; Ella is silent (except when she's singing) and Madison does all the talking. And they even physically resemble Penn & Teller, what with Madison being much bigger and wearing glasses. (After we realized this, we showed them a Penn & Teller YouTube, a clean one: their appearance on The View in Las Vegas a few years ago. It will be so much fun when they're ready to see "Bullshit!" but it's just a bit too foul-mouthed right now.)

They both sing well, actually. And Ella dances well. As for Madison...well, at times Madison's klutziness is almost aggressive. But it works pretty well for the comedy effect.

The Ross Family "Nows"

Ella has been doing a lot of writing this summer; she writes in her journal nightly and continues to make lists of things. She loves "having a restaurant" for dinner -- she finds out what we're having, names the restaurant (last night it was "Verdura" -- Spanish for vegetables, because it happened to have no meat), and makes up a menu. Then she writes down everyone's order and delivers it in the kitchen to me, then brings out each person's dish and pours the wine.

Yesterday, Ella decided that she was going to produce a family newspaper. She interviewed each of us, and today we received the first edition of the "Ross Family Nows." She had actually intended to write "Ross Family News," but made a typo and decided that "Nows" was cuter, presumably because it implies an up-to-the-minute reporting style. It has a typical about-to-be-third-grader's unabashed phonetic spelling, too, sporting words such as "wrcing" and "spashlt" (specialty) and "math matishuon." Graphics feature prominently in the Word document, which she typed out and printed all herself.

Anvil legal question from Madison

Madison has been very interested in discussing legal questions lately, scoping out what aspects of life the law governs and what it doesn't.

This was just heard at the dinner table:

"So if Max and Henry were over at our house, and they were juggling anvils up in my bedroom...and one of the anvils crashed through the floor and came through the kitchen ceiling and fell onto the table..."

"Yes...?"

"Well, what would happen?"

New verse to Jingle Bells

Last night, several hours after Madison had gone to sleep, she appeared in the office where David and I were working. She looked awfully awake, but she wasn’t really awake.

“I think I’ve really accomplished a lot,” she mumbled, as I steered her toward the bathroom.

“What?” I asked.

“I’ve made a new verse,” she said. “To…” her forehead wrinkled. “I can’t think. Snowbells? No. That’s not right. To Jingle Bells.”

I figured she’d been dreaming about writing new verses to Jingle Bells. Okay, whatever. I was amused, but I didn’t ask her more because I wanted her to go back to sleep.

This morning, I asked her if she remembered what she said to me. “I think I told you about writing the alternate verse to Jingle Bells,” she said.

“Right! You were dreaming about writing verses to Jingle Bells?”

“No, I was doing it before I went to sleep. Here it is!” and she recited to me:

I was just adding yeast
To our great big Christmas feast
But when the very first guests arrived,
The cooking quickly ceased.
First came Auntie Pat
And then our Uncle Lou
And then our cousin Dan arrived
With his big sister Sue.

“Did you write that down?” I asked.

“Nope, I just remembered it,” she said. “I made up another half verse, but I kind of lost it.”

“Well, I’m going to write it down,” I said. “That’s going in the Book of Madison.”

Flute lessons

Madison started flute lessons Wednesday, at the Hochstein School of Music and Dance. She loves her teacher, and so do I. She says she wants to practice 21 times per week. I'm happy she's glad to practice, but I sure hope the 21 times is an exaggeration, especially this week, as her sole assignment is just to practice toodling so that she consistently gets a TOOT sound instead of a PWOOF sound. She had definitely improved by the end of yesterday.

I hope that being more conscious of her lips will help her with this mouth thing she's been doing lately. (Maybe she's been doing it all her life and I just only recently noticed. But I'm pretty sure not.) She's sucking her lower lip into her mouth and holding it there with her teeth, especially when she's concentrating on something else. Her lower lip and the area below it is getting chapped, which is a feat in the summertime. She looks like a beaver, and this is nudging up to 30%-40% of the times I look at her. Thirty seconds after I tell her to stop (all I have to do is stare at her and do the Beaver Look myself, and she releases her lip...she sees it really does look ridiculous), she's at it again as soon as her focus is elsewhere. It drives me a little nuts, because it looks so goofy, especially with those braces-are-in-my-future crooked front teeth.

So maybe the flute will help.

Rejection! But a "positive" one

From Random House:

I finally got a chance to sit down with The Frontier Team this weekend and really enjoyed the chapters you sent—the Jameses in particular! Unfortunately, for whatever reason, I just didn’t fall in love with the project, which is something I require from everything I acquire, and I’m going to have to pass on this one.

Best of luck finding the right home for this! Just keep sending it out and I’m sure you will.

Definitely the most encouraging rejection I've received yet.

Wyoming scenes I'd like to paint

I just may paint some of these. I am itching to paint. (On the other hand, I came back from my trip with a new sense of purpose about some projects, and I'm going to make headway on them before I give myself the luxury of painting time.)

Old Faithful with buffalo magically trotting in front of it at just the moment of eruption:


Thermals at Yellowstone:


A cool thermal up close:


South of Jackson, WY:

On the road into Jackson, WY:


The sun through the trees, early morning in Jackson, WY:


The Madison River in Yellowstone:


Looking at the Tetons:


Waterfall on Pine Creek Trail in southern Montana:

The best vacation ever

The trip out to Yellowstone was busy, fun- and friend-filled, and just about perfect. The girls recorded everything in their journals, I have 600 photos, and I'll be coming out with a series of articles about the trip with recommendations and everything. We had, miracle of miracles, no travel problems, and even the fact that the first and last days were filled with driving long distances didn't phase the kids. (Thank Zeus for DVD players.)

I have been trying to organize the photos and select a few representative ones from each section. These are some photos with me in them (I was the cameraman for 95% of the photos we took, though).






I am not in this one (hope that's obvious):

That's Ella holding Serena, Madison holding Tatiana (not to be confused with the real-life Tatiana who is with me in the picture above). The girls got the bears at Yellowstone. You might think it would be a bad idea to procure large stuffed animals on a big out-west driving trip. I did, too. But in this case, we were both wrong. Those girls love those bears beyond any other souvenir they've ever gotten.

Off! Happy Fourth of July!

We are off to the great wilds of the Rocky Mountains and Yellowstone -- if you could call "wilds" flying to Denver and meandering up to Wyoming and Montana and staying in some nice inns and seeing all of the Yellowstone attractions and the hyper-history that is Cody, WY. (There, e.g., we are staying in an inn run by the great-granddaughter of Buffalo Bill Cody.)

I took the time to set up my email and all the programs I'd need on Ella's mini laptop yesterday, which means I don't also have to lug around this "big" old laptop. Most of the places we're staying are extremely civilized, with free wifi, so I may well be in touch.

The girls are still going gangbusters on their journals, and seem to regard them as The Most Important Thing Not to Forget. Yay!

I never thought of "Deb" as rhyming with "Ebb"

I've had people link to my blog posts before, but rarely, if ever, have I been the subject of a rhyme. :-)

On confidence

A friend who lacks confidence told me that she wished I could give seminars on how to do it. Barring that, though, she asked for advice. Now, I'm no psychologist; I don't know how to go about advising grown adults about how to acquire confidence when they don't have much. But I could outline my principles for her. Here is what I told her; please feel free to chime in, folks, because you nice people have great ideas.

1) All human actions either sustain what is good in human life, or destroy it, to some degree. Always plan, and then act, on the side of creation rather than destruction. In other words, don't do bad stuff, ever. Appreciating that you don't do bad stuff gives you the backbone to live confidently rather than slinking away from the world.

2) Know a lot about some things--why and how to act decently toward others, and also facts about the world. That way, there's never any shame in NOT knowing the things you don't know, and you never have to be embarrassed about it. Keep creating things, and take pleasure in what you create.

3) Be calmly objective, rather than harsh with yourself. If after careful consideration, you think you might have done something wrong, rectify it. As soon as you realize you're wrong, you're right.

4) Be your own, and only, true judge (aside from the judge that is reality); realize that people who try to tear others down are morons whose opinion does not matter. If you grasp this fully, you won't take their rejection personally, and you may even recognize their rejection as a good thing (you WANT to be rejected by the bad people). On the other hand, it certainly does help to have a close friend with a nice dry shoulder at these times; it takes me a while to shake off nastiness aimed in my direction. Either people are right, and you HAVE made a mistake (in which case see #3), or THEY'RE mistaken or possibly even evil, and you haven't.

5) Be cheerful, as unshakably cheerful as you can be. This not only elevates your confidence, but it makes others happy to be around you, which also elevates your confidence.

Other advice? Comment, please!

Last day of school & summer journals

Today was our "last day of school" -- officially -- until September.

On the spur of the moment, it occurred to me to celebrate with the girls by bringing them to Staples so I could get them Summer Journals.

(Sneaky, aren't I?)

They were so darned happy with these new journals that I have to wonder why I never thought of doing this for the last several summers. Madison got a leather-bound one that has refillable insides, and Ella got one with adorable puppies on the cover.

Now, Madison has been crankier than cranky lately, and the girls have been squabbling like mad. I'm not sure why this is, except we've been burning the candle at both ends a little. Last night Madison had a dreadful meltdown when we let her stay up too late by accident. So as of this morning we're on a bit of sugar detox again (until our trip to Yellowstone which starts in 11 days) and a rigid to-bed-at-8pm-so-you-can-read-and-relax-for-45-minutes routine. They don't mind any of this. Au contraire. In fact, they even reminded *me* that they shouldn't have chocolate milk for a while.

I proposed that in addition to reading, they use the unwinding time to write in their Summer Journals about what they do each day. This was met with eagerness beyond my wildest expectations. I mean, sure, it's a nice thing, to relax and write in a journal, but their sheer delight at the prospect surprised me. As if somehow I didn't have ample writing implements and opportunities already strewn about the house.

We're also celebrating summer by going to Seabreeze tomorrow, and then Thursday afternoon I'll take them to see Night at the Museum Part 2 (despite the poor reviews) and then swimming in a friend's pool. And after that, for the rest of the summer...well, they'd better not tell me they're bored; I'll just cackle evilly and point at the various cabinets filled with science projects and puzzles and games, tell them that being temporarily bored builds character and creativity, and go back to my work. I'll be SWAMPED this summer.

Poetry memorization for Madison

Madison has been wanting a little intellectual challenge for a prize, just for fun. She loves memorizing poetry, so for every five poems she memorizes, she gets a little prize. We're starting with a poem that I actually memorized when I was a child, a really fun one. Even more fun was to look it up on the internet and realize that there are two extra verses that hadn't been in the book I used as a child. I also hadn't known who the author was, so now I'm able to say Thanks, Arthur Guiterman, whoever you are or were!

The Superstitious Ghost
By Arthur Guiterman

I’m such a quiet little ghost,
Demure and inoffensive.
The other spirits say I’m most
absurdly apprehensive.

Through all the merry hours of night,
I’m uniformly cheerful.
I love the dark; but in the light,
I own I’m rather fearful.

Each dawn I cower down in bed,
In every brightness seeing,
That weird uncanny form of dread—
An awful Human Being!

Of course I’m told they can’t exist,
That Nature would not let them;
But Willy Spook, the Humanist,
Declares that he has met them!

He says they do not glide like us,
But walk in eerie paces;
They’re solid, not diaphanous,
With arms! and legs!! and faces!!!

And some are beggars, some are kin
Some have and some are wanting,
They squander time in doing things,
Instead of simply haunting.

They talk of “art,” the horrid crew,
And things they call “ambitions.”
Oh, yes, I know as well as you
They’re only superstitions.

But should the dreadful day arrive
When, starting up, I see one,
I’m sure ’twill scare me quite alive;
And then—Oh, then I’ll be one!

Two Cool Mom awards in one weekend

I got the Cool Mom award this weekend for arranging for a tent on my patio for the party I gave yesterday for a friend and colleague. It was a good thing I did so, because it poured all day yesterday. I got special recognition for putting beautiful white Christmas lights up all around in it. Except of course I've raised the standard, and the Young Critters are ALWAYS going to want a tent now. And the lights.

(I didn't take a picture, I was too busy. Ah, well, can't remember EVERYTHING.)

I also got a Cool Mom award for going out in the rain in my dress (I did put on sneakers) during the party and successfully defending my Tetherball Master title, against two very tall young teenage boys in turn. They put up a great fight. I was exhausted after beating the first one, but didn't rest before taking on the second.

On the other hand, if I ever do that again, I will be sure to wear wrist guards. Teenage boys can hit that ball *hard*, and 40-year-old forearms apparently bruise readily. I am wearing the battle scars with pride, though I hope I don't have to wear them for *too* long. It took four whole days for my sunburn to stop hurting last week. What is it with this suddenly-older body? Maybe I should start taking some vitamin...although WHAT vitamin, I'd have no idea. Vitamin C?

The Underneath -- read it?

I'm wondering if any of my fellow writing or homeschooling mom friends has read The Underneath, by Kathi Appelt.

We're about 30% of the way into the audio book. I would never have patience for this book if we were reading it, and definitely neither would Madison -- too little plot, too much description, its lyrical-ness is extremely repetitive. I think the reader is good, has caught the rhythm of the bayou of East Texas.

But...it is extremely dark. I find it kind of compelling, but the girls are somewhat unnerved by it, especially my sensitive Madison.

Question: Is anyone willing to give me the ending in the comments? I'm not sure I should continue it with the girls. Opinions?

I don't ask questions, I just get the band-aids

Just now from Madison:

"OW! I just cut myself on my own toenail!"

Turns out the cut was on her *ring finger*. Go figure.

Happy birthday Adam Smith, Father of Modern Economics

Adam Smith was baptised on June 16, 1723 (and under the old system it was June 5), but we're celebrating him today, because, you know, why wouldn't you?

Adam Smith (baptised 16 June 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The latter, usually abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work of economics. Adam Smith is widely cited as the father of modern economics.

Madison will be happy at breakfast today when we do The Birthday; she's been obsessed with economics for the past two days. Anyone have any good book recommendations for a somewhat precocious 9-year-old? Thanks.


(Thanks to Greenewable blog.)

50 words New York Times readers don't know

Here is a list of the top 50 words that New York Times readers look up when they read them in the Times.

How cool is this! We're going to discuss them, one a day, at breakfast for the next 50 or so days.

Here are some that I didn't know...I might have a sense of them, but not enough to pound my fist and give a definition:

phlogiston
bonobo
Sisyphean
Atreus
apotheosis
hagiography
parlous
louche
shibboleths

Let's start with taxes

"Right now," Madison said in the car last night, "I want to start learning about everything that confuses me in the adult world. I just don't get how the adult world works, and I want to. I don't think I can finish learning this while I'm still 9 [she has 3 more months of being 9] but I think sometime when I'm 10. Let's start with TAXES. What are they, really, how are they collected, and what are they used for?"

And so we did, for the next hour.

"Defense, police, courts," she observed. "Boy, you guys sound just like the Founding Fathers." [Thanks, Scott Powell.]

She's reading in her spare time

I think the Puppy Place books, in combination with Barnes & Noble's summer reading program, have finally done it.

Yesterday, Ella started reading in her spare time, not for school. She was at it for an hour and a half or so.

A real marker in our lives.

She's doing it right now. She got up and started reading. Not playing with the computer, not watching television. Reading. For pleasure.

Bliss, however temporary

Inadvertently fell sleep last night in my bed with a girl snuggling in on each side after having read (again) the spring planting chapters of Farmer Boy. Woke at 12:30, still dressed, contact lenses still in and sticking painfully. Girls still there, small bodies flopped over me like puppies on a mommy dog. Went downstairs, worked for a couple of hours, and then came back up and saw they had filled in the gap where I was. Pried them apart gently, slid back in, and took a long, wonderful hour to get back to sleep. Tried simultaneously to revel in the experience (because I know they won't do this for too much longer) but not to dwell on how just fleeting it probably is.

Not sure how to avoid this

The girls have been squabbling an inordinate amount lately. It's really ramped up in the last month or so.

Partly, I think it's that Ella, who has historically been so easy-going, has stopped automatically giving in when Madison gets aggressive. And they're both so easy to take offense. The tiniest things get blown up.

I've had to separate them a LOT lately. Sometimes, I refuse to adjudicate, telling them only that I know that they've decided to escalate a simple discussion about what to do into a whining verbal altercation, and that I just won't allow that. It's incredibly unpleasant to listen to, and if they can't find some way politely to work it out then clearly they can't be around each other. I really, REALLY don't want them to get into this habit of communicating, so I recently came to the conclusion that it's my job to cut it off at the knees quickly, as hard as it may be to tear myself away from whatever I'm doing. I usually give them one chance to reformulate...if they can't do it, I separate them.

As I explained to them last night when my friend Patrick was over and they were going at it for no reason, it's really quite rude to subject a guest to it. I'm simply not going to allow them. They are able to see the reason in this, at least. They don't object when I separate them.

I was talking with Ella about it before she went to bed last night, because lately Madison has been reading a lot and Ella wants to play. Ella can get annoying at such times. I made what may have been a mistake by saying to Ella that when she's at the point at which she realizes reading is a marvelous adventure that she wants to do for pleasure, it will be a lot more peaceful around here because she'll understand, and want to read herself.

She burst into tears.

!?!

"Madison was SIX when she started reading books for pleasure," she sobbed. "And I'm EIGHT."

I was kind of at a loss there. I explained to her, as I have been before, that Madison was DRIVEN to read, she craved those stories and she ignored the words she didn't know, because she wanted to read the stories. And then gradually she knew all the words. At some point, Ella will want to read the stories too...Ella can read now, after all...and then she'll just do it. It kind of doesn't matter WHEN you decide to do it, I said to her.

"But what if that NEVER happens?" She was really upset.

"It will. Ella, the only reason I really have pushed you on this in school is because reading really IS such a pleasure, and the sooner you realize it, the earlier you'll be able to have the pleasure."

The thing is, and I don't know what to do about it, Ella really ISN'T driven by a passion to do, well, anything in particular. She rides along happily with whatever we're doing. But she never really pushes to learn something, accomplish something, do something, all on her own. She's gotten into the Puppy Place books, and I'm glad to indulge her in that, because I want her to have something ALL HER OWN.

It will happen when SHE decides it will happen. And I don't think she likes it being on her head. It's easier for her to think of it "happening" some day, rather than happening when she decides to put a little work in.

And I can't emphasize it too much, because then she'll feel bad that it's "her fault" for it not having happened. To be blunt, at this point, it IS "her fault," although I really don't think in those terms. And there's no need to make ELLA think in those terms, because then it will get in the way of this becoming the marvelous adventure that it really is.

I simply cannot decide whether making her read more would have good effects or bad effects. Sigh. It's all particular to the kid, and I'm amazed to find myself--the only person who would know best--in the position of not knowing what to do.

Maybe I've just got to take away the TV entirely. Not that she watches that much of it. But maybe she needs to be that much more bored.

I don't know.

Story of Stuff: YouTube Critique

The Story of Stuff has been all the rage, even among the homeschool set. Here is an analysis of the facts presented, which should make Madison feel better. (Thanks for the link from C.August on a comment on the 3 Ring Binder blog.)