Activity

Last week, Ellis's school held an activity fair, where students could learn about all the different clubs and activities they could participate in. It was like a candy store for Ellis full of interesting things he could do: chess club, Lego league, cub scouts, and Suzuki violin. Now I'm sitting here with a stack of informative handouts trying to figure out if we can reasonably do all of these things in addition to Aikido, piano lessons, and track in the spring. He can certainly do some, but maybe not all. What do I know? I have always been one of those people that enthusiastically bites off more than I can chew.

As a general rule with the kids the activities they've engaged in have been based on their interests. As Ellis gets older, that rule becomes more complicated. Should we limit the number of things he can do at one time? Should I try to help him have balance in the things he picks (e.g., so far he hasn't been much of a sports guy)? Should I encourage him to put more effort into some things to really excel when he seems content to just participate?

 

Aikido of Minnesota

I don't have an example from my own childhood to help me sort this out. As a kid, I was on my own to figure out what I wanted to do. My parents drove me to practices and attended performances, but I think they would have preferred me to have a more sedate schedule. A less self-directed kid than I would probably have languished in this environment. With Ellis, these decisions are also complicated by the shared custody arrangement and the land-mined terrain of my relationship with his father.

I suppose it helps to remember that this is Ellis's life and that I am here to support him and guide him in the direction he wants to go (as long as it's a healthy one). Up to this point, he's shown good judgment in creating balance for himself.

Ellis (with great sense of humor) boos himself at a track meet. Photo by Paul Feng.

Perfect Song: First Day of Autumn Version

Do you categorize the music you listen to on a seasonal basis? I find that I have strong seasonal associations with certain songs and genres. Sometimes it's based on the content of the song or the general feeling of the music. Other times it's based on the memory associations I have from the first time I listened to a song.

I remember listening to Led Zeppelin in high school in the first months of the school year - staying after school for the theater or speech team when it started to get dark early, going to football games, dreaming about what my perfect school year would be like, writing feverishly in spiral notebooks while listening to my stereo late into the night. Now every fall, I play "Ramble On" (in my opinion, their best song) and it makes me feel positive about those cozy cool long evenings.

Perfect Song: Alt Rock Nostalgia Version

"Here Comes Your Man" - Pixies

One notable observation from my high school reunion is that popular music generally sucked while we were in high school. Since we graduated in 1991, "The Year that Punk Broke," we were already enrolled in college by the time Nirvana and the other great alternative rock bands created their sea change. Nope. For those of us who found the Top 40 crap being churned out during our secondary education there were essentially two choices: R.E.M. (hats off to you) or classic rock. I spent most of high school doing an independent study on the history of rock music and finally pulled myself out of the sixties and seventies in college.

While we were listening to the crappy d.j. at our reunion social event, a friend posed the question: "Pixies were around. Why didn't we listen to them?" I don't have an answer to that except perhaps to note that Chicago's south suburbs have their own insular quality. My husband, who is older than me used his chronological advantage to amass a great vinyl collection and was tuned into this stuff while I was still wearing mall bangs. I have the benefit, then, to rewrite my music-listening history and make myself cooler.

Please enjoy the song that Charlie now refers to as "Here Comes Old Man." I think that's a homage to his father (if he gets to be cooler, I at least get to enjoy being younger).

Drawing

Charlie has become very interested in drawing and writing. He's getting good at writing some letters, but I love his drawings of people the most. I think they look like the drawings of Shel Silverstein. I'm excited to see Charlie reach this stage. Ellis has been a prolific drawer and I was hoping it would be the same with Charlie. I think it helps to have lots of paper and drawing tools around. For a while it was tricky because Charlie liked to write on the walls, furniture and windows if you didn't watch him like a hawk. He seems to have gotten over that (mostly), moving onto other ways to wreck our property.


One of my favorite drawing tools for kids is the Fisher-Price Doodle Pro. It's a magnetic board that you draw on with a metal pen and metal stampers. They can do drawing after drawing with no mess and then erase quickly and start over. It's also great for traveling. I make sure to have my camera close by to capture the real masterpieces in a more permanent way.

Kids With Teeth by Charlie McCabe

Farm Fantasies

Judging by the growing backyard chicken trend and the increasing number of urban gardeners, I know I'm not the only city slicker with serious farm fantasies. Mine started somewhere in college driving through the rural areas of Illinois and Indiana and admiring the desolate beauty of old farm houses and the solitude they symbolized. Later as I thought about starting a family, the dream of spending time working together with the ones I love the most on our shared livelihood appealed far more than the "meet at the end of the day when everyone is spent" reality of nine-to-five jobs.

There are many things I love about my urban life and for at least a long while we're committed to St. Paul, but someday, oh maybe, someday there's a plot of land out there with our name on it. In the meantime, here are some of the ways I've been indulging my farm fantasies lately:

Blog:SouleMama. This family of seven finally made good on their farm fantasy in the last year.

Movie: Sweet Land. If you haven't seen this cinematically beautiful and quiet movie about a German mail order bride and the Norwegian farmer she comes to live with in Minnesota just after World War I, it's an immediate must rent. 

Children's Books: (Nothing wrong with indoctrinating your children into your fantasies.) We're currently reading aloud all the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder as a family in the evenings. Right now we're on Farmer Boy about Almanzo Wilder's childhood on a New York farmstead. In the picture book category, I also love Ox-Cart Man by Donald Hall.

Grown-Up Books: I just finished reading Coop by Michael Perry about his family's first year on their Northern Wisconsin farm. I also read This Life is in Your Hands by Melissa Coleman, which is her story of growing up with her back-to-the-land parents in rural Maine in the seventies.

Places: Dodge Nature Center has a lovely little farm with chickens, goats, mules, pigs, and sheep. The Gibbs Museum of Pioneer and Dakotah Life is kind of like a living version of the little House books. There's also the family farm at the Minnesota Zoo, which is open during the part of the year while the weather is nice. I'm still trying to push Josh into lobbying for "free baby goat" to be one of the benefits given to zoo employees and their families.



 

Oh, That Light!

Run on the beach while you can under the bright blue sky.

Enjoy the last of the green as it turns to yellow before next month sets it ablaze.

The sun washes everything in the glorious light of its shortening rays.

There is still plenty of time.

Don't waste it by looking too far ahead.

Non-Committal

Tomatoes or Squash?

You never know what you're going to get with September. This week started out with the wading pool and here we are at midweek harvesting all the ripe tomatoes in the garden so they don't get wrecked when it drops into the thirties tonight.

The transition to fall doesn't happen all at once. I switch from sandals to shoes, but refuse to take the plunge into wearing socks. Bike riding is still preferable to the Y, but if you miss the window before the light starts to fade, evening comes fast and it's the treadmill for you. Some neighbors one street over have a makeshift pumpkin patch on their lawn, but I know that pumpkins purchased before mid-October end up more scary from mold than from carving by Halloween time.

I've committed to fall in the sense that I know there's no turning back now. I'm ready for summer to be done and to pack away the light and airy members of my wardrobe. I appreciate the time between air conditioning and heat, and not just for the reduced energy bills. Our minds tend to want to classify things into hard and fast categories. We want things to be one thing or another. Liminal times like September can be a good exercise in acknowledging the necessary existence of ambiguity.