I'm Dreaming of a Muddy Christmas

For the past several years the kids and I have made paper snowflakes and posted them in the windows. We made some stringers of hanging stars out of pretty paper, and the snowflakes used really fancy oragami paper that I was supposed to actually use for oragami, but I never had the patience.

These snowflakes are starting to show their age though, and they will have to be remade or replaced soon.

We have never really decorated the outside of our house. I'm not anti-Christmas spirit. I've just always concentrated on the inside of my house. To be specific, I've decorated the living room. That's about it. Sometimes we put things up in the dining room, or the kitchen. Inevitably, I recognize that I've forgotten to put these decorations away some time around my birthday (March.)

So this year, I've gone the extra mile. I got gel clingy snowflakes in bright blue and white colors for the windows. We got lights for the outside of the house. Not many. There's a stringer around the eaves and some dangly stars by the front door, and some snow flakes on stakes in front. Why now? Well, I've found solar powered lights. I don't have to plug in, and my never-ending quest to lower our electricity bill is still on track.

Unfortunately, the world is fighting against me every step of the way.

The kittens discovered the gel cling snowflakes. We are finding pieces of clingy gel all over the house. I put the clings into the high upper panes of the windows--the ones you can't even see if you're looking at the outside of the house--and stretchy cats are reaching up and pulling them down. They are playing with the sticky snowflakes. They have discovered that these cute little floppy toys will stick to anything, and everything will stick to them. The kittens have lost many under the furniture, and as a consequence I have discovered that I really need to dust under my furniture  I will probably find gel cling in their literbox for many weeks to come.

We're expecting the sod any minute now...

We have part of our front lawn dug up by the gas company. They're supposed to re-sod soon (December? Seriously?) but until they do, I'm not putting out anything on stakes. So much for the standie snowflakes.

Nature is doing her part by making sure we never see the sun. Did I mention that all of my lights are solar lights?  To be completely fair, we get a pretty good charge on the solar panels for the hanging stars, they'll stay lit all night. Those came with a special note saying that the solar cell is so advanced, the lights will even charge on cloudy days (gotta love UV.)  However, the same note wasn't included int the stringer that I bought for our eaves. Apparently, it uses older technology and a less advanced solar cell. We get about three to five hours of light out of the stringer. Seeing as we're averaging sixteen hours of darkness these days, it's not much.


See the stringer? See the grey skies? We'll get about three hours of light today.

I can't wait until Christmas next year. I might be able to see my lights. In the meantime, the kids and I are going to cut out some paper snowflakes and watch the new sod turn rotten and brown in the cold weather.

Dear People's Gas- WHO THE HELL PUTS DOWN SOD IN DECEMBER??????



Thank Heavens for neighbors who don't mind big electric bills.

 

Evesdropping on the Brohlin Family (in the car)

This is what travelling is like in our car.

***
"Do you think I'm fat?"
"Caleb, anyone who thinks you're fat is crazy. I wouldn't be able to see you if you turn sideways."
"Ha. Ha. That doesn't make any sense."
"You know what I'd do if someone said I was fat?"
"They'd be crazy, Hannah. You're skinnier than Caleb."
"So I am fat."
"You are not!"
"I'd beat them up with something big and heavy and then I'd laugh and say, 'Who's fat NOW?!?' "
"Hannah!"
"Well, they'd probably be swollen from internal bleeding, so they would be fat. Ha!"
"Oh...my...Gaw..."
"Um. Let's turn on some music!"
"Hey, look! We're about to turn over..."
"Oh no! You're planning a crash!"
"The odometer, you knucklehead. It's about to turn over to 94000 miles."
"Oh. Why did you say turn over? Nothing's turning over."
"Um...well, if it wasn't digital, there would be little dials that flip over with every mile and turning over means that a lot are returning to zero. Does that make sense?"
"I don't know. I wasn't listening."
"The CD player isn't working."
"Maybe we could plug in Dad's iPod?"
"We need an empty radio station. I don't think we can get any." (our car is from ancient pre-iPod docking station days.)
"Hey, I can sing "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald!"
"NOOOOOOOO!!!"
"Anything but that!!"
"ARRRRGGGHHHH!!!"
"Blah!"
"Okay. Okay. We'll look for a radio station."
"Who's fat now?"
"That's not funny."
"So why are you laughing?"
"You know, before? When we were by the pond? I splashed my face with pond water. I just licked my lips. Do you think I'm going to get sick?"
"You washed your face."
"But do you think I'm going to die?"
"Yes. You will die. You will die of pond water disease and I will miss you terribly."
"Mom!"
"No, you won't die! You washed your face. With soap. You. Will. NOT. Die."
"Okay."
"Are we in Illinois yet?"
"No."
"This is soooooo long."
"We've only been driving for a half hour."
"I'm not trying to break any speed records."
"Not like when you drove to the dump, right Dad?"
"What?"
"I was driving safely. Just not slow...."
"Go faster, Dad!"
"I want to feel the 'G's' !"
"Like at least one and a half 'G's'. Come on. Drive faster!"
"Oh for f...pete's sake. No one is going to speed. Not even for 'G' forces!"
Hysterical laughter.
"I wasn't driving that fast."
"Who's fat now?"
"What time is it?"
"Twilight."
"I thought twilight was closer to sunset. Right when the sun went down. Right before it. This is night."
"More like dusk."
"Isn't dusk before the sun goes down and then twilight?"
"No. It's twilight, dusk, evening, night..."
"Then midnight? Right? Midnight. Morning..."
"Early morning. Then dawn. Sunrise, then dawn, then morning...noon, afternoon, evening, twilight, dusk."
"Yeah."
Silence. Just for a moment.
"Who's fat now?"
More hysterical laughter.
***
Only four and a half more hours to go.

Don't judge.

My Coolest Readers

I occasionally check my blog stats. It's not nearly as depressing creepy as Googling myself. I just want to know who is interested. Really. I'll share with you. I have nothing much to hide. Here are some of my blog stats.

 

If you've been following me, you know I'm big in Germany (see my blog post from3/29/12 entitled "Random German Citizen.") This is reflected here by the green spot on the map of Europe. Great Britain is the other Western European country that seems to understand me. At least one person has been curious enough me to read the blog eight times (or maybe they're curious about whether or not I'm being investigated by DCFS yet.) That's one more British view than all of the views I've gotten in China. To be fair, I might be censored in China...but I doubt it. I have no views on currency manipulation at this point. It's not that I don't care, I just don't understand. Someday I will, then the censors can come after me.

 

 

(It kind of feels like the Olympics looking at this map. United States, Russia, Canada...and China. If it wasn't for China, I'd say it's the winter Olympics, but I don't recall how they did in hockey.)

 

Now, I have to say that the Scandinavian countries are woefully under-represented on this map of readers. I've had a (one time) reader in Saudi Arabia for heaven's sake! Is it too much to ask a Norwegian to tune in occasionally? This map doesn't show all of my readership, but it shows a good majority of it. Looks like China has overtaken Ecuador which is now even with Malaysia and Latvia. but neither of them show up on the map. Believe me, they're there. 

 

Next, we have what internet providers people use. Internet explorer and Chrome are second to Firefox, which is kind of cool actually. I just like the idea of foxes. They're cool animals and flaming foxes sounds like the name of a very cool band, or the nickname I may or may not use for some of the women I work with (not.) Mobile something or other is up there. But I'm really excited by Opera. I mean who wouldn't be excited by Opera? I've been to see a couple of operas and they were actually all pretty fun to watch. All except that modern thing which was kind of atonal and depressing. If I want atonal, depressing singing, I'll switch off the auto-tune on B-96, or listen to Taylor Swift perform live.

 

And finally, this one. This is what operating system you people are using to access my blog. Bravo to you, brave Linux user. I don't know who you are, but you are obviously my coolest reader.

Game Face

"So, tell me how you scored the goal that won the soccer game Caleb."

Okay, but you have to understand that everything in life--everything in the universe is connected to science, Mom. So I want you to think about physics.

"Physics?"

Yes. Physics. You know that kicking a soccer ball requires a lot of different physics rules and laws to come together. There's a lot of transferring of energy. Like there's potential energy in my foot. And I have to transfer that to the ball. And then it's kinetic energy. And it has to overcome inertia and gain um....something with an 'm'....

"Mass? Matter? Muscle? Monkeys?"

I'm serious, Mom. It means like, speed.

"Momentum?"

That's it!

"I just want to know about the goal, Cay."

Im tellilng you about the goal if you'd just listen.

"Okay. Go on then."

Where was I? Oh yeah. You want to transefer the energy and overcome the interia, right? So, then you have to think about the angle of the kick. And how the goalie could block it. Like if it's this high. Or maybe you could make it sink.

Or get it over his head. But that means that you have to kick it harder to overcome gravity.

And then you score! And it's all by science! By physics! Everything is physics! Isn't that great? Soccer is all physics!

"You know what, Caleb? You're right. I'm really proud of you. You did great. I wish I could have been there, but it sounds great."

Thanks, Mom...hey...

...why do you keep moving your phone around. Are you taking my picture?

"Um...maybe."

This is my child.**

He scored the only goal of the final game of the soccer season--the game winning goal of the ONLY game his team won, but all he could talk about was physics. I don't know it this is normal, but it sure is fun to listen to. We are planning a field trip to the planetarium soon because he wants to discuss this theories about photons and mass and the Higgs-Boson with real scientists. I'm torn between encouraging him and explaining that he should learn his eight and nine multiplication tables before he formulates theories about physics.

What the heck. I think I'll encourage him...but I'm keeping the camera handy.

**If I hadn't been there for his birth, I don't know if I'd believe he was really mine.

Dressing up for the Holidays

 

Halloween isn't my favorite holiday. I never felt right begging for food from my neighbors. That's why I let George take the kids out while I stay at home performing my charitable duty of providing sugar and sweets to the deprived neighborhood kids.

 

 I have to say that getting the kids costumes together is one of the best things about Halloween. Once they decide what they want to be, all I have to do is figure out how to do it. Last year Hannah was "Cosmic Girl." She made it up, and I had to figure out what this vision of hers meant. I'll have to find some pictures, but we cut out stars and planets and comets and sewed and glued them onto a black unitard. She wore a mask and a skirt. That was about it. The previous year she was Edward Elric from Full Metal Alchemist. I'll just say that even when she explained the costume, no one knew who she was. It was really cool though. This year she is a Pokemon trainer. Some people guessd she was Lady Gaga. When she explained though, some of the confusion cleared up...but only some.

 

 

 Caleb was a bloody mummy. We got him a skeleton costume and sewed cheesecloth all around it. Then we ripped it. Then we added red paint for the blood. It has to be bloody because it's Halloween, and what's Halloween without a little bit of blood? Caleb is a traditionalist with his Halloween costumes. He was a skeleton three years ago. Then he was a Grim Reaper (with skeleton underneath.) Then last year he was a zombie (with skeleton visible through the ripped t-shirt he wore.) We got a lot of mileage out of that skeleton costume. It was a little bit sad that we needed a new one this year. Maybe he'll be a zombie-skeleton-mummy next year. Or a skeletonized ghost.

  

Halloween isn't my favorite holiday of the year, but the kids make it fun.

Smart Chick

Hannah is getting used to school again. It's a little difficult. Organization is not her strong suit (not that I'm a great role model for her. My room looks like a yarn store exploded.) But she's starting to make friends, and she is getting her homework (mostly) done. Still, there's a few things she's getting used to. There are cliques that we never had to deal with before that seem to have sprung up in fourth grade. She's not always the most socially adept--she speaks her mind too freely for everyone's comfort sometimes.

A friend of Hannah's stopped by the other day. She just got a rocking cool haircut. Kind of punk. Kind of retro. She's eleven and if this is how she wants to express herself, good for her.

"I didn't recognize her!" Hannah said laughing at the memory and rolling her eyes at her inability to recognize someone who she has known for years. "Then she walked up to me and gave me a hug at recess. Who else would do that? That's how I recognized her. It's a really cool haircut."

Her friend's face fell. "I really needed a hug. I got called two really bad names today. Someone called me Lesbo, and someone else called me Faggot."

Hannah looked confused. "What does that mean?"

Her friend shook her head. "You don't want to know."

"They're mean names for people who are gay," I explained to Hannah who needs answers for things. Half answers don't work for her mind. She'll keep asking questions until she gets to the bottom of things.

This was still not a good explanation for Hannah. "But...what's wrong with people?" she asked looking confused. "Why would they try to make you feel bad that way? It's not like there's something wrong with being gay. Why would people use mean names to talk about nice people?"

Hannah was leafing through her math book as she recalled her summer. "I mean, my Auntie Becky has a girlfriend, and they're really nice. And there's Rosie and Michelle. They're cool too. And Cassidy's Moms. What are their names again, Mom, I can't remember." Suddenly the subject changed. "Hey, Did you use this math book last year?"

"Yeah, I know that math book!" her friend said, relaxing finally. "You know, next year, you'll do your math all differently."

"Great," Hannah griped. "I'm just getting used to it this way...."

I know that the kids at school have to go through anti-bullying classes. But I think that Hannah took away a lot of the power of these bullies just through her incomprehension of their mean-spirited attempt to belittle someone. Her normal is much more inclusive and understanding and kind and open than many other kids that she is exposed to...

...and I'm proud of that. I'm proud of her. She's a smart little chick(en.)

 

Hannah's favorite t-shirt. Mine too. She looks a lot like the chicken on the front
Her nickname is Chicken.

Learning to Debate, and the Invincible Dilema

"I don't understand why. You said that if you get a cut on your head, it bleeds a lot, right?" Hannah asked.
"Yes," I replied, recalling bringing Caleb to the hospital when he cut his head, my own stitches as a child, other head wounds I've seen.
"Well, why don't we have scales or something to make our heads not bleed so much. Why did we develop this way?"
"I don't know. Humans are an imperfect design."
Hannah sighed. "If I designed people, heads would be better."
"If I designed people, we'd be invincible," Caleb informed us, supremely confident in his assessment of what would solve all of our head-bleeding problems.
"That wouldn't be fun," Hannah opined. "If we were invincible...where would the conflicts be? Conflicts make life interesting."
"Sometimes...." I began.
"I don't mean wars," she said, obviously sensing "mom lecture mode" coming on. "I mean like if you were invincible, you wouldn't be afraid of car accidents or plane crashes, or anything so you'd never have conflict."
"I can see that," I admitted.
Caleb sounded hurt when he said, "Well, I guess I won't say anything else, since you both agree. Invincibility is bad I guess."
"No," I disagreed. "I never said that. Now you tell me what is so great about being invincible."
"Oh." Caleb warmed to his subject quickly. "You could do anything, you wouldn't worry about dying."
Hannah interrupted. "Then we'd have overpopulation," she said primly.
"Hannah, let Caleb have his turn," I said sternly. "Go on, Cay."
"No, people would die," he informed us. "But only of old age. Not from being sick, or accidents. We could climb mountains and not worry about falling off. We could survive crashes and we could do things that we don't do because we're afraid."
"Well, if I knew I wouldn't die from a fall, I might actually take up mountain climbing."
The kids laughed. They know I fear heights like nothing else.
"But if there's no danger, there's no conflict," Hannah said after a minute. "That wouldn't be interesting. You couldn't tell stories. Everyone would be the same. There wouldn't be any heroes."
"But people wouldn't die too young," Caleb countered. "You wouldn't need heroes. Everyone would be doing interesting things."
"Then no one would want to hear about it," Hannah stated. "Like a two year old could climb Mount Everest. It's just not interesting anymore."
Caleb laughed. "Or a grandma could jump out of planes."
"Not interesting."
"But safe. People could live longer."

I could see the points both were making.

I wonder if the presidential debates will be this interesting...or this civil.

Cows

"Cows are heavy."

Sometimes I have to do a double take at things my kids say. And then I wonder if they are as smart as I like to believe they are. Sometimes I just don't know how to respond. What is the proper response? "Yup, sure are, son. So's a car," sounds a bit sarcastic.

"Like maybe a ton, at least, right? Cows have to weigh a ton. That's big." Caleb mused, not seeming to expect a reply, which was good as I wasn't sure how to answer. "It would be stranger if they weren't heavy though, wouldn't it?"

 The pause went on a bit too long and I realized that he wanted a response."Like balloon cows?" I asked, hoping that we were still on the subject of cows. Sometimes I don't pay close enough attention and subjects move forward without me.

Giggles came from the back seat. "Balloon cows. That's funny. You couldn't herd balloon cows." Another pause. "Or feathers. If cows were feathers that would be funny, but hard to keep inside a fence."

"And they wouldn't weigh as much," I ventured.

More giggles. "Cow feathers. Which would weigh more? A balloon cow or a feather cow?"

"Um..." Being a mom doesn't prepare you for all questions. This was one thing they never warned me about in mom school.

"I guess maybe if a balloon cow had helium, it would weigh less than a feather," he finally decided. Then he laughed again.

I laughed too. I really like this job sometimes.

Precision and Poetics

When Caleb was just learning to speak, I loved to have him explain his world to me. At the time, I was in graduate school and one of the things I had to study was the development of language in children. He was always an outlier on the high side of the bell curve. He was one of those kids who rarely got frustrated by his lack of language facility because he was always able to talk his way around problems.

When he was about two he saw a large swarm of dragonflies, and he informed us: "Look, a dragonfly party!" This made total sense because while he didn't know what a swarm was, he knew what a party was.
When he wanted to describe a trail we were hiking that was under water, he called it the "juicy trail." Mom's Wisconsin house was "The sharing house" for obvious reasons.

Hannah was never as easy with her language usage; she was one of those kids who would get frustrated because we didn't know what she was saying, or at least we couldn't interpret what she meant. As the years have gone on, however, I've come to appreciate her thought process (although I still can't say I understand it.) She is a literalist who loves saying exactly what she means. She can't talk around problems like Caleb because talking around a problem means that she's not saying exactly what she wants to say. She needs precision

With this as a background, here is a conversation we had yesterday:

Me: "Here's an interesting quote. It's from Albert Camus. He was a French-Algerian writer. 'Autumn is a second spring, where every leaf is a flower.' What do you think he meant by that? (in the interest of full disclosure, I was reading the funny papers, and Mutts had this quote in it. I'm not so big a fan of Camus that I'd introduce him to eight and ten year old kids.)

Hannah: "Maybe he meant that the leaves are going to fall off the trees and decompose. After the winter, when spring arrives, flowers will grow better because of the composted leaves."

Me: "Um...well...that's an interesting point of view...."

Hannah: "Or maybe he meant that the leaves have colors like flowers in the spring."

Caleb: "I think I'd go with your second idea."

Hannah: "What's Alergian?"

Just try to explain poetry to a literalist. I dare you.

Embarrassing Your Kids: Lesson 2

Review: This was Lesson #1 in embarrassing your children.



 Here's #2.

I kept looking for Canadian police officers to take a photo with. They all have some pretty snazzy uniforms. They reminded me of the Kids in the Hall sketches with the police officers. They all had cool stripes on their trousers, very clean (the uniforms) and well fitting. Whenever I saw officers on the street, however, they were busy with actual "policey" things--go figure. This same scenario happened in Ottawa, St. Remi, and Quebec City.

In Ottawa however, we toured the Canadian Museum of Civilization. It was a really, really cool museum and provided me with the only opportunity I had to get close to Canadian Law enforcement; We stood next to the mannequin with the Mountie uniform.

Why was this embarrassing? Well there was a group of tourists from Italy that were watching us funny the whole time. Hopefully they thought we were Canadians being patriotic. I don't think that they did though. Americans are recognizable anywhere.

Striking Out on Our Own

So, what are we doing during the Chicago Teacher's Strike? We are reading, doing the remainder of our Summer Bridge activities (which we were too busy to do during summer), and we were sightseeing around the city. We stopped in the other day at one of our favorite sites. The Garfield Park Conservatory. It's a gorgeous place to visit...in an unfortunate neighborhood.

And we picked a great time to visit. They have ART! Art amongst the plants. This is something that they have done a lot in past years. I remember seeing the Dale Chihuly sculptures when Hannah was still in a stroller. The conservatory is over a hundred years old, and Jens Jensen was one of the movers and shakers in its inception, but it was very badly damaged by hail last summer. They're still working on restoring the plants and rooms, and replacing the glass.

One of the great things about the conservatory is that I am always surprised by the creativity that they manage to put on display. This year, instead of importing an artist, the conservatory employed twelve different Chicago artists to make art installations throughout the conservatory. We had a great time finding them all. Although I didn't manage to photograph everything, here are a few of our favorites.

There were the hanging fruits...they looked like tomatoes hanging from the ceiling, but they were planters. They also looked like little round squid, or an alien about to drop on your head, but hey, it's art!

There were towers of caps from detergent bottles. It was really kind of neat. I never would have done it, but I don't pretend to be an artist.

There was this...net thing. Balling wire, screening, and...well, we thought it was a cocoon from which a large butterfly must have emerged. This thought was enhanced by another display that looked exactly like a large rice-paper cocoon prior to the emergence of  a super-sized butterfly, but I didn't get a photo.

But even without the artists, there is plenty to contemplate and observe at the Conservatory. Like These melon shaped things. I don't recall what they were, but the kids were kind enough to stand beneath them looking thoughtful...or angry. Or thoughtfully angry because their mother put them in danger of being brained by mystery fruits and they really question Mom's judgement sometimes.

The Conservatory is more than plants inside. Outside, we were able to not only interact with nature, but also with traffic cones. The kids played conservatory bingo, looking for everything from rabbits to goats. This unusual sculpture was not on their bingo card, surprisingly enough.

The traffic cone sculpture from a distance. The lily pond is gorgeous.

These goats were on our bingo cards. The placard explaining the presence of goats on the west side of Chicago was, unfortunately, written in chalk. I was unable to read most of it. They appear to be at the Conservatory as part of an urban farming experiment.(?) To the credit of the goats' proprietor, you can't get much more urban than the west side of Chicago.

A lovely Morrocan fountain. More beautiful art...and more interactive than you'd think. I saw someone washing their hands in it after they ate lunch. 

My kids are fascinated with the idea of meditation. Lucky for us, there is a labyrinth that is well-maintained here with instructions for walking it. They waited until another lady was done with the walk, and they took off--reasonably slowly. Hannah later said that her favorite part was getting her shoes wet in the waterlogged beginning and ending. I guess that if that's how she achieves inner peace, I can't knock it. I just wish she hadn't been wearing my shoes.

Precious, precious fishes! Actually some really honking huge koi. We always have to visit them.  We were even allowed to feed them once. It was a highlight. I think the kids like to hang out here just in case we're ever asked to feed them again.

The kids and I wandered around the Conservatory for several hours. Hannah and Caleb insisted on travelling apart from me for most part of our visit. I didn't mind. I like it when they get along; it happens so rarely these days. The quiet was soothing to me, and the ultra-oxygenated atmosphere is good for the lungs. 

Did we learn anything? I'm sure we did. I'm just not sure what yet. Sometime knowledge takes time to sprout and grow. Like the plants there. The Conservatory is growing a lot of new plants after the destruction of the hail storm. It's going to take awhile though. They have the huge Show Room closed so that it can be used as a makeshift propagation house because several greenhouses were mostly destroyed. It's going to take time to regrow and rebuild. 

Damage from the hail storm on a greenhouse roof.

The Fern Room after the hail storm.

The Fern room today.

But in the midst of this rebuilding, regrowing, and searching for elusive knowledge there's always room for fun! The Museum of Contemporary Art has an installation right next to the gift shop. It's a room filled to the ceiling with balloons. White balloons. Thousands of white balloons. Visitors to the Conservatory are invited to go inside.

So we did...
...and we got lost in the art...
...and it was a great place to spend the afternoon. I think I want to go back. Funny that something that's been around for 105 years can feel new all the time.