Restore unto me the joy of candy corn

It's been awhile and lots has transpired. First, and most importantly:

1. I came to the rather shocking realization that I no longer like candy corn. I know. First the cholera in Haiti and now this. I used to really like candy corn. I would stock up with several bags of the Brach's (both plain candy corn AND the Autumn Mix, which has those pumpkins, once so delectable to me) and would enjoy them throughout October and November, if they lasted. This year I started seeing them in the stores in September and each time I would think to myself, "Nah, it just doesn't sound good today." And now, here we are, Reformation Day, in which we of the Reformed Persuasion eat lots of candy and ponder the Theses anew, and I still have not bought a single bag of candy corn. It's just sad. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I...

2. Turned FORTY. Yes. Four decades of living. And eating candy corn. Only apparently my FORTY year old taste buds can no longer handle the copious amounts of whatever is in candy corn to make it taste so good and look so bright and waxy.

3. For my birthday I got a hammock, in which I have spent a considerable amount of time swaying and pondering the leaves and the sky and the whole FOUR decades business:


4. Apparently this morning my email was overtaken by some sort of Virus which sent my entire address book a little piece of its single stranded RNA. I did not check my email until late this afternoon and I was just mortified. Fie, technology, FIE! A pox on you and your Matrix!

5. Two weeks ago, we had lots of fun with friends at Oil Ranch:




Harper did her own hair AND didn't seem to mind one bit that her sunglasses blew a lens.

6. The husband and I got to have a date--a birthday party for another professor at his school and we were by far the least interesting, least educated people there. The guests included Ukrainians, Russians, Belarussians, Armenians, Bulgarians, and a couple from West Africa (Sierra Leone and Liberia). We had such a good time listening to their stories.

7. The kids and I spent a week with my parents. We went to the PN-G homecoming game--their first football experience. They were duly impressed with all of the feathers and dancing and jumping and drumming and yelling and cousins:


Grandfather Pate helped Hudson start his own garage band:

and invited us to a car show:
The beauty in the background is Grandfather Pate's 1970 Cougar. As you can see, she wins lots of prizes. As you can also see, Harper and Hudson are flat out crazy about that Grandfather Pate.

Helena, meanwhile, spent most of the week draped in Mardi Gras baubles:

8. Helena is at a trot all day long unless she is sleeping. It is very cute and exhausting. The end.

Favorite books of late

I just read a New York Times article about languishing sales of picture books and it filled me with dismay, mainly because the chief reason seems to be that parents are pushing their kids to read chapter books (without pictures) because they equate "picture book" with "easy book". I have myriad arguments to counter that notion, but none of those parents is ever going to read this blog, and I suspect they are also not reading to their kids much if they don't know there are approximately one MILLION picture books available that will challenge their kids in cognitive ways that no chapter book can. There is a wonderful resource book titled Honey for a Child's Heart by Gladys Hunt that has been invaluable to me. It's basically an annotated bibliography of children's literature, arranged by age and genre. I've discovered books I never would have found just by rifling through the stacks at the library. I do still occasionally pick a book randomly from the shelf, which is how I discovered a delightful nature series by Marianne Berkes:

1. Over in the Ocean: In a Coral Reef
2. Over in the Arctic: Where the Cold Winds Blow
3. Over in the Jungle: A Rainforest Rhyme

All of these books can be sung to tune of the old children's song "Over in the Meadow," which we happen to have on a cd. Just in case you don't know the tune, the author kindly includes a few bars of it in the back of the book, along with a load of additional information about all of the types of animals in the story, and lots of other animals which are indigenous to each region. Also, the artwork is inventive and engaging, and each book includes a description of how the artists created the storyboards. Here is Harper, using clay to replicate the polymer sea animals in Over in the Ocean:


The kids have also enjoyed a series written and illustrated by Isaac Millman about a deaf boy named Moses:

4. Moses Goes to School
5. Moses Goes to the Circus
6. Moses Goes to a Concert (Hudson loves this one because it's about a percussionist who happens to be deaf)
7. Moses Sees a Play

I don't love the way these are written, but I like the pictures of Moses signing certain words from the story, even though I find the arrows showing me how to replicate the signs to be a little confusing.


These next two are very silly, but are still well-written:

8. Too Many Frogs, and
9. Here Comes Gosling by Sandy Asher, ill. Keith Graves

A solitary yet kindly rabbit, and his pronoun-eschewing froggy friend. Both kids giggle all the way through. There is, unfortunately, a song (sung by Froggie) in Here Comes Gosling that does not provide a tune, which tends to vex me.


Our favorite protagonists are almost always animals, in case you haven't noticed. Here are two that go together nicely:

10. Katy No-Pocket by Emmy Payne, ill. H.A. Rey
11. Babies on the Go by Linda Ashman, ill. Jane Dyer


The kids requested this sweet bed-time story every night for a week:

12. May We Sleep Here Tonight? by Tan Koide, ill. Yasuko Koide


Harper loves the folk art compositions in this one:

13. Market Day by Lois Ehlert

She was especially delighted to see the hacky-sack (or, 'khaki sack' as she and Hudson insist on calling it) she just bought with her allowance money at Whole Earth Provision Company, featured prominently in the story. Made in Guatemala.


And, finally, the Minerva Louise series by Janet Morgan Stoeke. The illustrations and text are so simple, but the kids think they are hilarious, and I love how Minerva Louise sees the entire world through a chicken lens.

A hug to begin, and a hug to end.

no more Shakespeare

A sampling of dialogue from our house this week:

Hudson: Harper! You are NOT having your next BIRTHDAY!!!

Harper: Hudson! If you say that again, you are not INVITED!!!

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Hudson: Um, yes, princesses CAN be super readers (by which he actually means 'super heroes'). And well, Spiderman, he...kills spiders.

Harper: No. He does whatever a spider CAN. So he does not kill spiders. He watches them. To see what they do.

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Hudson: Mommy! Harper (it's pronounced 'Hoppuh') is not being kind to me.

me: Well, what should you do?

Hudson: Compwain?

me: Well, no. I think you should probably just ignore her and go play.

Hudson: (invoking an extremely forlorn tone) I think Hoppuh is being mean to me because I am a Noe-nee Boy (this is a name Harper created back when I told her she could no longer tell Hudson 'no'. She started saying Noe-nee Boy. Sometimes it's almost a term of endearment. Other times it is not.)

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Harper: What are you doing?

Hudson: Smelling my socks.

Harper: Do they smell DISGUSTING?

Hudson: Yes!


Also, there was another Big Kid camping trip with the Daddy:


And we went to our first Astros game:


The weather here is perfection. We welcome you with love, O Autumn!