Super heroic

When Grandmother Pate came to see us a few weeks ago, she brought some surprises. Chief among them:



My favorite thing is when he imagines scenarios in which he is wearing the costume and happens to run into someone he hasn't seen in awhile. It goes like this:

Hudson: I walk in and see Grandfather Pate and he says (voice full of wonderment, amazement, awe) "Is THAT BATMAN???" And then I say. "YES, I AM Batman!" and then Grandfather Pate says, "I didn't know Batman WAS here and can I see his Batman Motorcycle?" and then I say, "Sure!" and I show it to him. Does Batman have knives?

me: I don't know for sure, but probably. I know he has lots of gear and cool stuff.

Hudson: Does Batman have lots of guns?

me: Oh, probably. I know he has a nifty car and there's probably a gun on there somewhere.

Hudson: Does he SHOOT the bats?

me: Well, no. He kind of ACTS like a bat, I guess. (I see him pondering this because the only bats he knows about are the tiny ones at the zoo that hang upside down and occasionally fly over to nibble on bits of cantaloupe that hang from a rope in their habitat.)

Hudson: Here's what Batman does: he shoots his gun and cuts things down with his knife.

Ok, then. If anyone needs any of that done around their house, you should definitely let Batman know.

Freedom is messy and, on occasion, painful

I had a friend almost tearfully confess to me, a couple of months ago, that she had done something she thought she would never do. She had bought a play yard for her 14 month old son. Oh, I asked, is it the gray plastic one with the six sides? Yes, she whispered, her eyes downcast. Well, I said, we have that very same one, and we have used it continually since Harper was around 6 months old. We don't call it a "play pen" we call it a "rock climbing gym," and I fill it with blocks and books and puzzles and balls and babies. We started putting each kid in there whenever they got mobile, so they got used to it and didn't see it as a prison. I don't think it's hyperbolic to confess that having it has saved my sanity over the last 5 years. I tried very hard to use it ONLY when it was necessary (cleaning, showering, cooking) and not just as an excuse to sit at the computer without having to worry about someone falling in the toilet or emptying the entire bookshelf. Anyway, I never understood how staunch advocates of total attachment parenting could actually wear their 14 month old in a sling while they emptied the dishwasher or got a pizza out of the oven. I also was not willing to let the 14 month old destroy the house in the name of curiosity. Well, a few weeks ago, the dog peed on the corner of the quilt that goes under the rock climbing gym and I had to move it. And when the husband picked it up, it broke. Pieces of it had started to splinter off bit by bit for the past year or so, but this time, it was the death knell. The reality is that I wasn't using it much anymore because Helena has gotten much better about playing independently without destroying things or endangering herself. I was mostly putting her in there when I showered or cleaned. But today is the stay at home and clean day and there was much to be done and I missed it. Oh, very much. Here's what I accomplished today:
1. four loads of laundry, including all of the sheets.
2. washed bathmats and mopped bathroom floors.
3. Also cleaned toilets and sinks.
4. And vacuumed (Harper had to help with this because she was riding her bike in circles through the front room as I was scurrying around with my swiffer and she commented, "You are like the little red hen and we are like the lazy animals!" So, I put her immediately to work.)
5. Swiffered Hudson's room.
6. A tiny bit of dusting.

Also, we did NOT turn on the television ONCE! (more about this later, but we have almost completely cut out the t.v. watching and it makes me feel better about life in general and the kids, after a couple of days of withdrawal, don't seem to miss it much). The big kids played nicely inside and outside.

So, I could end this post here and you would think, "WOW! Impressive." But. Let's talk about some of the things that happened while I was so productive. Well, Helena stuck her hand in a pile of disgustingness that I had just swiffered up from Hudson's room and the hall. Then she followed me into Harper's room and stuck her hand right into the disgustingness that I found on the window sills when I dared lift the disgustingly dusty black-out curtains. So then I put her in her room and put the baby gate on her door. She wept like Jeremiah while I mopped the bathroom floors. I let her out. I opened a window while I dusted and had to prop it up with a sawed off broom handle because the windows are 55 years old and won't stay open on their own. I was dusting the television and Hudson somehow managed to knock the sawed off broom handle off while he was sticking his head through the window to say hello, and the blasted thing slammed down on his neck like a guillotine. Thankfully, I was right there to release him but he was pretty sad and wept like Jeremiah for about 10 minutes. Then I realized that all of the dust was about to cause me to lapse into anaphylaxis so I took two Benadryl. Then I made lunch and got Hudson and Helena down for their naps. I realized that two Benadryl is maybe one too many and that I might just lie down on the couch for a minute and rest my eyes. I fell into a medically-induced coma that last one and a half hours. Then Harper and I did our reading. Then the other two woke up and I commenced again to the spring cleaning. I put Helena in the sand box and went to switch some clothes into the dryer. There was a loud bang and I realized that Helena had tried to remove the sawed off broomstick from the window (because, yes, I was idiotic enough not to learn my lesson after the guillotine incident. My need for fresh air superceded appropriate parenting, apparently) and the window had landed on her poor baby hand. She wept, yet, again, like Jeremiah. Her hand appeared relatively unscathed, thankfully. I left the window down this time. Then the husband got home. Then he left to go on a quick grocery run. The big kids had dinner outside, which they've asked to do for months and I always say no. I got Helena down from her high chair and stepped out into the back yard to tell Harper and Hudson to finish up and come inside. I tried to come back inside and the door was locked. I didn't know Helena could reach the dead bolt. She can. The window was also locked because the husband had locked it emphatically as I told him about the series of unfortunate window events. After she locked the door Helena went straight to my desk and got my camera and started pushing all the buttons and came to the window to show me.I'm glad the memory card was in the computer because if it had not been, I feel certain she would have erased the entire thing, thus obliterating an entire year of poorly focused, badly lit Hinze family memories. The husband got home a few minutes later and just shook his head as he let us in.

It's a day for The Annals of Perfect Mothering, for sure.

Shangri La and strawberries

The kids and I went to Port Neches to visit the grandparents for a few days last week because the husband had to be out of town. My mom suggested we take a little day trip to Shangri La, some botanical gardens founded by Southeast Texas philanthropist Lutcher Stark. I admit I was skeptical. Because Southeast Texas is known more for its swamps and vast vistas of refinery spires (and the faint smell of sulfur in the air) than it is for its lush gardens. Then we got there and I was pleasantly surprised. There were beautifully manicured gardens with thousands of blooming azaleas. There were multitudes of egrets nesting in the mesquite knees, with a special viewing blind to observe them. The kids' favorite part was the vegetable gardens, which were being tended by wonderful volunteer gardeners who encouraged the kids to dig and take as many samples as they liked. We tried spinach, celery, swiss chard, parsley, and, the favorite by far, sugar snap peas. Harper wondered why vegetables don't taste this good when we buy them at the grocery store. Hudson ruminated on his swiss chard for around 30 minutes, finally swallowing it on the car ride home. There was even a special plot, deemed "Mr. McGregor's Garden" which had lettuce, french beans, radishes, parsley, cucumbers, celery, cabbages, potatoes, AND, of course, chamomile, and, right in the middle hung a tiny blue jacket and some tiny brown shoes. To scare away the birds, of course. VERY adorable.

Harper and Hudson used a mortar and pestle to grind up some egg shells, then they dug holes and buried them. It helps enrich the soil, apparently.

Hudson was really hoping for an alligator sighting, and was well prepared with a weapon:

Helena stayed mostly in the stroller because there was lots and lots of water and I did not fancy a repeat of the muddy baptism at the Japanese gardens. She did get out to do a little digging in a sandbox in the vegetable garden:

Yesterday we went to Froberg's Farm for some strawberry picking. We got 10 pounds of strawberries for just under $20 and had a tremendous time. I don't think these are as sweet as the ones we picked last year. Perhaps it's a little early yet.

Because of all the activity of late, I had deemed today and stay-at-home-and-tackle-the-mess day. I turned on "Sesame Street" and got a few things accomplished, then decided that we might as well take a little walk. Hudson's chain came off his bike after two blocks and I managed to get grease all over my hands and still not fix it, which meant we had to drag the bike back home. At which point Harper tripped and skinned her hands and knees. And it was very dramatic. So we got home, washed our hands, nursed her wounds, switched out the bike for a scooter, listened to Sasha howl her indignation at not being included, and intrepidly set forth again. About 2 blocks from the park, Hudson fell and scraped his knee. He didn't cry because, "I am rough and tumble, Mommy," but then about a half block later, he fell AGAIN and scraped the same knee AGAIN, and this time the rough and tumble crumbled and he started wailing and of course I didn't have my first aid supplies so I did my best with some water and a wipe I found in the stroller (clean? only time will tell). The good news is my pedometer tells me I earned 6,492 steps for my effort.

Thoughts on homeschooling, Part 1

I was reading a little snippet on the first family's trip to Latin American and the first lady was quoted thus:

"It is a very rare opportunity that we get to travel together. Usually when the president and I travel, these two are in school where they need to be," the first lady said, gesturing to Sasha and Malia. "But they're on break now, so they get to come and they've been very excited." (italics mine)

I got a bee in my bonnet when I read that. Know why? I can't imagine that the First Lady really thinks that Malia and Sasha are learning more sitting in a classroom (even if it is a classroom at the tres elite Sidwell Friends, where the first daughters attend) than they will traveling the world with the LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD, who also happens to be their Daddy. I mean I understand that Mrs. Obama wants to set an example for good school attendance. I understand that she wants her kids to have as normal an upbringing as they can possibly have given the very abnormal situation in which they find themselves. But would anyone really begrudge parents who've been handed this extraordinary opportunity wanting to bring their kids along? Are Sasha and Malia really going to miss something earth-shattering if they miss a couple of weeks with the Sidwell Friends in lieu of a trip to India??

So, today at the park, as almost always happens when we go to the park by ourselves, I ended up having to answer the "Why have you chosen homeschooling?" query. I feel like I don't have a very concise answer, so I want to work on that. There are lots of reasons and I need to constantly remind myself of them when I am feeling faint-hearted (which is often), as well as being able to give a reasonable answer to those who really want to know. So, one of my reasons today--FLEXIBILITY. We love the thought that when we are more able to travel, we can. We are not bound by any schedule. We do not have to worry about the scolding we might receive from an attendance clerk (as my friend Sandra received when she had the audacity to want to stay in her home country of South Africa a few extra days after school had begun, instead of rushing back to adhere to the Houston school district calendar. Her daughter is in kindergarten. Kindergarten, mind you, where everyone knows that if you miss 5 days you will definitely surrender all hope of ever winning the Nobel Prize). I love that if the weather is beautiful, we can be outside in it, and, conversely, when the weather is dreadful (July, August) we can focus more on the sort of academics that require being inside.

So, the critics might say, how are your kids ever going to learn that The Real World requires them to adhere to a schedule? That being on time is important? That they can't always make their own hours? Well, I would say that if my kids do end up doing something that requires a fairly rigid schedule, I will hope they'll adjust fine. Maybe it won't be laborious to them, since they haven't had to do it since they were four or five. Maybe it will be laborious to them and they will be entrepreneurial enough to come up with an option that allows them more independence. Maybe they'll adhere to a rigid schedule of their own choosing (Dear Hudson, please be a farmer so I can come over and pet the baby calves. Love, your mother.) Maybe I'll still be taking them to the park on a Monday morning when they are 25 (fingers crossed!!)

That will be all for now. More episodes to come as I am inspired. Tomorrow (hopefully) I will bring you a post on Shangri La, which you did not know is actually located in Orange, Texas. Yes, indeed.

con carne

I think I've mentioned before that we are three types of eaters here at our house: I am the sole omnivore, the husband is a vegetarian, and the kids, with the exception of the aforementioned cow's milk yogurt, are vegans. Which, for the uninitiated, means that along with the not eating of The Meat, they also don't eat eggs or dairy or any other product that comes from animals. I think this sounds more interesting than it really is, and I started a post a few months ago about how ironic it is that the kids do not really enjoy vegetables. We do eat lots of grains (oatmeal, pasta, sprouted grain bread, cous cous) which they love, and fruit (at least 50% of their daily calories, I'd guess) and they do eat vegetables, but almost always grudgingly. As in "how many bites of my sweet potatoes do I have to eat? (Hudson) or "Do I have to eat ALL of this broccoli to be finished?" (Harper) or "I think I'll just toss these peas on the floor for Sasha" (Helena). Anyway, we decided to add a little cheese to the mix a few weeks ago and I slaved over a lasagna which I and the husband thought tasted pretty good, but which each kid proceeded to take approximately two tiny bites of and then declare themselves so full that they couldn't possibly eat ever again, EVER. So, that was a trifle debilitating for me. Because, really, it is CHEESE, which is beloved by kids everywhere and always, right?? Apparently, no. I was especially aggravated because I used organic mozzarella AND parmesan AND ricotta which cost somewhere in the neighborhood of a new Vespa scooter for just the one lasagna.

So, in the spirit of More New Experiences, and because he is on spring break this week, the husband came home from Whole Foods with fish for the whole family on Monday night. The fish was received with great joy by Hudson, who was fresh off watching an episode of "Man vs. Wild" with Daddy, in which Bear Grylls had consumed, in order, a raw frog, a bat, and a rat. I, for one, was more than ready to embrace vegetarianism full-scale after watching the frog consumption. Hudson thought that every bite he took of his breaded halibut made him very Bear-like. Harper was not a fan, but she is going through a phase where new stuff is scary and possibly toxic. She is also washing her hands more than Lady Macbeth and we've had to institute some very unpopular Lotion Accords which have been received with great angst.

Last Friday we went to the Japanese gardens in Hermann Park and Helena walked into a very muddy stream and I had to step in to fish her out. I was wearing my red Frye boots, so you can see that there was some sacrifice involved on my part. She, and the boots, have recovered nicely, though the ride home was highly unpleasant and smelly. That same day she also decided that a half-eaten apple she found in the trash right on top of the coffee grinds was a terrific snack. AND possibly climbed up on to her changing table. At least she is cute. In fact, after I put her to bed tonight I was folding clothes just outside her door and she was singing a song about all of the friends she saw at the park today. It was to the tune of the Veggie Tales song "Busy, Busy!" and she sang "Izzy, Izzy! la-la-la Izzy!" and "Abby, Abby, la-la-la ABBY!" and "Aiken-dum, Aiken-dum, la-la, la Aiken-dum!" and "Ah-boo, Ah-boo, la-la-la AH-boo!" and "Hutsen, Hutsen, la-la-la Hutsen!" and "Dyoon, Dyoon, la-la-la Dyoon!" and "Ah-yaid, Ah-yaid, la-la-la, Ah-yaid!" and "Twan-yule, Twan-yule, la-la-la Twan-yule!" and then Mommy and Daddy and Sasha also got a verse and I thought my heart would burst with the sweetness.

The husband and I got gussied up again. Blurry, but recorded for posterity anyway. We went to a wedding, then a movie, because the reception didn't begin until 6 hours later, and my mom was here with the kids. We went to see "The Adjustment Bureau" at the Studio Movie Grill. I actually surprised myself by thoroughly enjoying the movie AND the fact that I could, and did, eat a cheeseburger while enjoying the movie. It's a mainstream movie that does a pretty good job of pondering free will versus sovereignty, which is not typical Hollywood fare.

Speaking of the fair, yesterday we went back to the Livestock Show and Rodeo so the kids could ride some super fun carnival rides with Daddy. We could have purchased another Vespa with the money we spent, but look what Harper got to do:

This lady lifted Harper right up on Doc and then she and her sweet son gave us all sorts of Useful Horse Information. Mostly that you can either keep horses or you can have a nice normal life with a house and clothes and groceries, but not both.

The other day I was trying to explain to Harper that I had talked to my friend Tara, who didn't get her first horse until 8th grade and how that was a great idea, mostly because it means I don't have to deal with it for another 8 years, and she said something quietly under her breath. "What?" I asked and leaned down, and she said, with a scary, quiet confidence, two words.

"Tooth. Fairy."


So.

one small step

Helena just banged around on my keyboard and managed to make everything on the screen look stretched out wide. It's driving me pretty crazy and I have no idea how to fix it but rest assured that the husband will get home, touch the mouse pad in some magical way, and what is horizontal will again be properly vertical.

It was his birthday yesterday, that man of mine. He is, at 35, a half decade younger than his wife. The kids and I went to REI and they chose a Bear Grylls knife for him and he was pleased. He will use it for camping and other assorted survival scenarios that he encounters on a daily basis here in the wilds of Houston. We had dinner at Escalante's and we all were pleased.

We took the kids and toured a school yesterday morning. It's a university-model classical school, which means two days a week of group instruction from a teacher who is not me, and the other three days at home working to practice and cement the trivium. We all liked what we saw, especially Harper, who said, "I want to go to this school because there are monkey bars." So, grammar, logic, rhetoric, monkey bars--got it. We don't know if we are actually considering the school seriously or not, but it was useful and inspirational to see how it works.

The husband's work gave him a pedometer for his birthday and I have been wearing it around. It's fascinating, and rather obsessive business, counting one's daily steps. I walked over a thousand steps getting dinner and baths night before last. And we went on a quick zoo jaunt today (and got there and realized that all of Houston had the same idea) and I walked 4,601 steps. I'm hoping I will be inspired to move a bit more. I gained around 4 pounds in a week after partaking of the SIX Crave cupcakes the husband brought home (I asked for a single one--he is exponentially generous when it comes to most things) on Valentine's Day. It was a slippery slope to Raisinettes and then Milk Duds and then quite a load of bagels and cream cheese and then, for the grand finale, an entire jumbo box of Junior Mints followed by an entire pint of Haagen Daaz on Fat Tuesday. I try not to weigh myself every day (and especially not after the aforementioned Junkfest 2011) but I find a step onto the scale every few days is a good reminder to return to healthy habits. And, from past experience I know that 4 pounds very quickly turns into 14, then 40, then 400 and then you might find yourself standing on a floor scale in bike shorts getting weighed on national television. Okay, that last one never happened to me, but I feel pretty capable of it, if we're honest. So, this calls for a time of abstention, dovetailing nicely with the liturgical calendar.

I realized (somewhere around step 1,762) today that Hudson has learned to skip. I can't recall if it is early or late or right on time, but I do know that I did not teach him. Good for you, little skipper! He wanted to see the new baby giraffe and he admired her and said, "She is so tyoot!" which is very tyoot in and of itself. He's been going through a not-so-tyoot phase of getting frustrated and threatening to throw the object of his frustration "IN THE TRASH!" For example, "Harper got the red and blue spoon! I'm going to frwow ALL the spoons IN THE TRASH!" I wonder if anyone else's kids squibble and squabble over ridiculous things like spoon and cup color and whether or not there is a picture of a baby on their yogurt container?

All the pretty little horses

Harper's Fascination With All Things Equine continues, so what a happy coincidence that yesterday was kids get in free day at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Of course "kids get in free" becomes something of a moot point when you have to pay $7 for parking, and $6 for a 4 minute pony ride. But the weather was beautiful, we were with our dear friends, and no one stopped us from wandering around inside the horse arena, where we saw blacks and bays, dapples and grays. We watched some cowboys (and girls) in a cutting competition, in which they, and their horses (Quarter horses, we learned) separate a calf from the herd. Poor little calf does not want to be separated from its herd, so cutting is pretty tricky. Hudson was very concerned when he heard the term 'cutting' and then the term 'herd,' because he thought I was saying 'hurt.' WHY are they hurting the calves, Mommy??
Llama llama liked Helena:


I would have taken more pictures in the petting zoo but I had to keep Helena from putting her hand inside of a goat's mouth while simultaneously evading a baby deer who wanted nothing more than to eat my chambray dress.

Harper came home and drew a picture of her beloved: