Sleepy, Dopey, Grumpy.

Well, I have been quite a joy lately. The husband is finishing up a semester in which he has taught a night class two nights a week, which has meant he leaves just after the kids wake up and does not get home until after they are in bed. As much as I do indeed love and cherish my dear children, by Wednesday night of each week I found their every word and deed Incredibly Annoying and my ability to suppress this Extreme Annoyance was nil. I am aware that my temporary situation is a full-time reality for many women, and they have my deep respect and compassion.

The Christmas season also makes me irritable, and then I am irritable because I am irritable. It is loud in my head.

Hudson woke up this morning and was saying, "You've GOT to be KIDDING me!" about everything, which is funny in and of itself, but patently hysterical when his actual pronunciation is along the lines of, "you DOT to be TIDDEN me!" He has been doing more than his usual amount of stomping around with a scowl on his face when there is absolutely not one thing wrong, and I've heard rumors that there is some kind of testosterone surge that happens to boys soon to be four years old, and I suppose that makes good sense. Here he is with a very gun-shaped stick he picked up at the park today and brought home in his jeans pocket. He is also wearing the Daddy's headlamp:He is VERY interested in guns and knives, and has no idea what the majority of mankind actually DOES with guns and knives. Which reminds me that up until this week, when Harper would see someone smoking a cigarette, she would say, "Oh, that lady is enjoying a lollipop!" and I would not correct her, for the same reasons, I suppose, that I don't correct her when she exclaims, upon seeing the smokestacks at the refineries, belching out whatever smoky byproduct it is they belch out, "Cloud makers!! Mommy, that's where the clouds are made!!!" Anyway, yesterday she asked me what a cigarette was. And I asked her where she learned that word and she said from the book about Officer Buckles and Gloria, and he tells the kids, as one of his safety tips, to Stay Away From Cigarettes, a sentence I had skipped over when I read it aloud. Now that she can read, she is going to discover all of the spontaneous editing I do as I read. Anyway, I told her that cigarettes are tobacco leaves wrapped up in white paper and that some grownups like to set them on fire and breath in the smoke but that it wasn't a very healthy habit because our lungs don't work as well as they should with smoke in them. She wandered away at that point. Maybe to go smoke a cigarette, I don't know.

Harper has mastered monkey bars this month, and likes to use it as a verb: "Friend, would you like to monkey bar with me?" she will ask at the park. One day last week our neighbor was over to admire Hudson's drums and he asked Harper if she played any instruments and she replied, "I play piano, harmonica..." and she kind of gazed off into the distance running through the orchestra considering which others she could claim. Harper and Hudson are both infatuated with our neighbors, who are a sweet young couple, newly married. They will stand on the top of the slide peering into their back yard, sometimes singing a little ditty they like to call "Mr. Golightly! Come outside!" Only when Hudson says it, it sounds like Mistuh Dough-yite-yee. When there is a Mistuh Dough-yite-yee sighting, everyone comes running in, breathless and giddy. One day I overheard them making a list of grown-ups who are invited to our house. Mr. Golightly made the list, as did army men and ballerinas and Bear Grylls and karate men and hunters and Survivor Man. I am sorry if you are not on the list. I am not either, apparently.

Last Sunday when everyone was dressed and ready for church, Hudson made a proclamation: "The boys have to be cool and the girls have to be bootiful. That. Is. The point. That is the RULE."

Helena has reached the developmental stage I refer to as "octopus arms". She has realized there is an entire world above her head, heretofore unnoticed and she is determined to partake of it. It's hard to remember to push things out of her reach--on the table, on the kitchen cabinets, on my desk. She has also discovered that if she wants to defer the unpleasantness of a diaper or clothing change for a few minutes, she need only stand up on the changing table and wrap her arms around me for a sweet hug. I will usually stand there for a few minutes rubbing her velvet back, until the sweetness can no longer mask the stench, at which point I have to perform a half Nelson to get her in position. If only a hug could wipe away the poo. Alas.

I have decided that I can no longer hide my disdain for the Berenstain Bears books. I think it was Monday when Harper plopped down a huge stack of them and she and Hudson snuggled in and we made it through four and we were almost to the end of one about pollution and recycling and I read, "And Brother and Sister Bear realized that their Clean the Earth club blabbedy blaggedy blah blah BLAH! And they all picked up their litter and recycled and the world was TIDY and CLEAN THE END NO MORE BERENSTAIN BEARS TODAY. I'M SORRY BUT I CAN'T READ ANOTHER WORD OF THIS PEDANTIC INSIPID TEXT. I SIMPLY REFUSE!!" Okay, maybe I didn't really say 'pedantic'. And honestly, I don't mind the older ones like The New Baby and The Spooky Old Tree. But whenever they started writing Issue Books--blech, the quality of the writing is just poor. I told Harper she can read as many of them as she wants to, as long as she is the one reading them and not me. I'm sorry Stan and Jan (and Mike), I am sure you are lovely people and I'm glad you are very rich.

That will be all. I'm thinking about starting another blog to review the grown-up books I've been reading lately. Of course, I'm also thinking about learning to play the cello and mastering the art of watercolor portraiture. So. Life is short, art is long.

hippo.CAMP.us

It's the area in our brains where we store memories. I read an interesting article about some particular strategies to help folks suffering from dementia and Alzheimer's (maladies in which the hippocampus, for reasons still mysterious, stops working as it should) and the most effective was simply to write things down and let the person read the information. The spoken word flits through our consciousness and evaporates, even in those of us with a healthy hippocampus, but the written word cements itself, imprints itself, and the memory is retained. I've known this about myself, that I have a need to write things down and read them; I am clearly, in the parlance, A Visual Learner. I still remember the names of the two adorable kids who sat in front of us in church on Sunday--Savannah and Canyon--because they had stickers from the nursery on their backs with their names printed on them in block letters. Anyway, interesting but not necessarily germane to anything. Except if I don't write about it I won't remember it. And there is great stuff I want to remember. Like our camping trip.

It was raining and fairly cold for two days leading up to the camping, so we wavered on whether or not we should actually attempt the trip, especially since we were bringing along friends with us. Thankfully, the weather cooperated nicely. We were dismayed upon our arrival at the Stephen F. Austin State Park to find that approximately 8.2 MILLION Scouts from the greater Houston area would be joining us for our camp out. And, even with the previous days' deluge, there was a burn ban, which meant we had to make our s'mores over a propane stove and eat MRE's that the husband picked up at REI. But aside from that, we had a really good time. Helena stayed home with her doting grandparents Pate plus the husband really loves camping and is eager to do just about everything that needs doing, which means I actually got to relax quite a bit. There was a moment when I lay in the quiet tent (after the Scouts finally quit with the yelling) looking up at the stars (we left off the rain flap, which made things a bit chilly, but great for star gazing) with sleeping babies and sleeping husband all curled up around me in their sleeping bags, and I was deeply awed and thankful: for stars and trees and wind and warmth in the cold and family and good friends and rest. It is goodness and bounty and I should remember. I will write it down. And show a few pictures:

June and Harper whistling with laps full of Spanish moss:


Boys in the hoods:


We by the Brazos:

The end.

Dew on the berry

Let's get caught up. Last Wednesday we took the yearly pilgrimage to Dewberry Farm, where the kids had lots of fun doing things that had very little to do with actual farming. I managed to get not one good photo, but when has that stopped me from posting them?:

A large bouncy convex jumping surface (I'm sure there is a technical name for this, but what??):

These fun go-carts:



A "hay" ride, sans hay:


A "pumpkin" patch, which was really just the back 40 with some miniature pumpkins sprinkled about:

And we ended the day with the place all to ourselves after the masses of school kids left. We did the zip line around 20 times each:


We continued the Outdoor Fun with a weekend camping trip, evidence of which will appear in the next post, because while I've been typing up this masterpiece, the big kids have been performing Cirque du Soleil, Lord of the Flies edition out on the swingset, while Helena has been playing in the dog's water bowl and repeatedly dialing China on my old cell phone.

Jesus rains.

The kids and I were in the car and it started raining and a song came on about Jesus and His reign and I was anticipating some questions and was trying to remember if it's homophone or homonym and then I wondered if the DJ had played the song because it was finally raining (we've had a bit of a drought here) and I decided if I were a DJ, I would totally do that, because, like Jason Mraz, I am All About the Wordplay. That sentence is exhausting. In other theological/weather related news, one day last week when the wind was particularly gusty, Harper and Hudson were out on the swingset and Harper came sprinting in. She ran into her room and ran back out toting her Jesus Storybook Bible. "Whatcha doing?" I queried. "OH, Hudson is yelling at the wind to STOP so I am going to show him WHO makes the wind and that he shouldn't yell STOP." I couldn't really argue with that. Actually, though, now that I think about it, perhaps I should have double checked with her regarding WHO she thinks does make the wind because it's possible she told him it's the guy who illustrated the Jesus Storybook Bible.

A conversation I jotted down recently:

Harper: HUDSON! (every single time she says his name it sounds like an indictment) You are NOT doing what I expected!

Hudson: Eww.

Harper: HUDSON! That is NOT what you say when you watch a movie. It is NOT a compliment!

Hudson: Ew.

Harper: HUDSON. You MAY NOT say "EW" over and over. It is NOT what you do when you watch a movie.

Hudson: (very very quietly) ew.

Harper: HUDSON! Do you need to go to your room? HUDSON! Big boys do NOT suck their thumbs.


I like the way, when the discussion wasn't going how she planned, she changed into personal attack mode, and brought up something completely unrelated to her original complaint. Where in the world did she learn that?

I have bits of paper with scribbled reminders about things I want to remember to write about strewn all over my desk. (exhausting sentence Exhibit B) Some unedited samples:

**"Hudson just tripped on his hoop skirt. And I think I shall say no more about that. Harper can be scary persuasive."


**"People who are wont to intone 'GOD is sovereign' at every circumstance probably feel pretty satisfied with the way things have gone for them."
(I should note that I do, indeed, with all that I am, believe that God IS sovereign. What I despise is when folks in the church use it as a call to inaction. So there.)


**Harper: How did God make mountains?
me: I don't know!
Harper: I think he stuck lots of sticky tape together then painted it.


**"Harper: HUDSON! You can either play dress-up with me OR...I will squish up your toes and eat them for a snack. What's your choice?" (this one perhaps explains the hoop skirt)


I feel as though I should use this very public forum to confess that, yet again, I did not vote in the recent election. I did buy a teapot at Ikea yesterday. We have yet to turn on our heater, even though it has gotten a little chilly this week, and we've all been drinking lots of hot tea to warm up.Cold enough for a hat, but not pants, apparently. I like my teapot, especially the fact that it only cost $9.99, as opposed to the one I saw at Pottery Barn that was $39.99. The real purpose of the Ikea trip was to buy a storage shelf so that I can organize all of the spectacular school materials I acquired from my fairy godmother, who is also known as "Mrs. Spivey, Retired Kindergarten Teacher Extraordinaire." I'll be sure to post a picture when I get it all situated. My dream is to have everything the kids need on a daily basis where they can reach it without any assistance from me. Then I can go off and eat my bonbons while they essentially teach themselves.

For probably a month now, Helena has been eating more than the other two. I have yet to find anything she won't eat. She is also getting tooth #11 and she can sing the ABC's tune, although her pronunciation of the letters is not quite English at this point. In fact, while she babbled during dinner one night, Hudson exclaimed, "Huhyaynuh can talk!" then he listened for another minute and added, "She's speaking Spanish!"

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!