Max's class made a Mother's Day cookbook for their mothers. Max's contribution was a recipe for Hot Dogs:
Ingredients
Hot Dogs
Ketchup
Mustard
Hot Dog Buns
Directions: First you go to the grocery store and you buy the hot dogs and the buns. Go home and cook the hot dogs and the buns on the grill. When the hot dogs have black spots on them, they're done. Then you put the hot dog on the bun and eat it with ketchup and mustard.
Sounds about right. (Except that I don't eat hot dogs, but I won't tell him that.)
Mia gave me a gift that she had won at school. A speaker from The Wildlife Federation visited her class and gave prizes for answering trivia questions. The question she answered was "What absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere?" She correctly answered "trees" and won the grand prize of gardening swag. So I got the garden tools tote and a package of poppy seeds, which she was very proud to give me.
Will wished me a Happy Mother's Day when he woke up, hair going every which way.
Husband gifted me another tote with some L'Occitane soaps and creams in it, an amazon.com Gold Box purchase. "It was a good deal." He said he'd give it to his mom if I didn't want it. Yesterday, he also followed through on "two roses bushes of the same color", a *hint* I dropped last week -- because I'd buy them anyway for two pots outside my garage.
Altogether, while the gifts are nice, of course, it's really the thought behind them all that... cracks me up.
*****************************************************
My blog friend Laura tagged me to write 5 things I enjoy about motherhood -- then tag five different mothers to do the same. But, other then Laura and Naturelady (who Laura also tagged), I don't really know five other moms in the blogsphere that I can tag; my readers are mostly anonymous (though I know who you are!). But if you are a mom, take a minute to think of one of two things that make it all worth it to you. Leave a Comment if you'd like, or just be indulged for the moment.
Here are my reasons:
1) I love reliving the kid stuff -- reading books, playing games, going to school, weekend mornings in your PJs forever, boxed mac and cheese.
2) I love that they think I know everything. "Mom, how can you tell if it's going to rain?" "Why do people have wars?" "What's the difference between baking soda and baking powder?"
3) I love folding their laundry, watching the clothes over the years go from the cutest thing you've ever seen to long and trendy.
4) I love watching at the three of them from a distance -- because they're funny and full of life and all mine.
5) I love it when my kids say things that show they have a clear and caring understanding of the world around them. Like, when Max (age 5) told me last week that he should take a shower instead of a bath because it takes 40 gallons of water to take a bath. Or when Will understands that a complicated plot in Star Trek involved a black hole and time travel. Obviously. Or when Mia knows that trees use carbon dioxide and give oxygen.
I love that somehow, this parenthood thing seems to be working...
(565 words)
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Just One Small Act a Day
Saw the movie Earth today, a rainy Saturday, with Mia and Max. Husband took Will to Star Trek, which they both enjoyed, so us other three went on our own movie trek to a modern-day Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.
The documentary is actually footage from The Planet Earth television series. It's edited to show the drama of the changing of the seasons in different hemispheres. Some of our most memorable scenes were baby Mandarin wood ducks jumping from their nest in a tree, a humpback whale baby and mother migrating to their summer feeding grounds, the tragedy of an exhausted elephant being attacked by a pride of lions, and cranes trying migrate over the peaks of the Himalayas. The scenery was incredible, of course, though I found the editing a little choppy. I spent most of the movie wondering how in the world photographers were able to get it all on film. It takes a brave person to film 30 hungry lions in the dark.
Another memorable moment: "Mia, is that a cheetah or a leopard?" I asked.
"It's a cheetah. Leopards live in the jungle and have rings around their spots."
She sure set me straight, but I was pretty proud of her for knowing something like that. Last week she also noted that an elephant on TV was an African elephant because its ears were shaped like the continent of Africa. Years of playing Zoo Tycoon, watching Animal Planet shows, and just paying attention to all things animal, I guess. I'm sure I learned these things at some point, but I think the part of my brain in which animal facts are stored must have been taken over by the ability to schedule things. Sadly.
A final point of interest from the movie: The boreal forest, where the northern hemisphere changes from arctic to forest is a nearly unbroken ring around the globe. It hosts something like a third of the world's trees and produces a whole lot of our oxygen. This one particular image -- of a ring of trees around the upper part of the planet -- reminded me of earth as an integrated whole. I'll avoid espousing about needing to save our planet -- we all know this. But I can't help myself in reminding that we're living in a time of change, and just one small act of care a day adds up.
(400 words)
The documentary is actually footage from The Planet Earth television series. It's edited to show the drama of the changing of the seasons in different hemispheres. Some of our most memorable scenes were baby Mandarin wood ducks jumping from their nest in a tree, a humpback whale baby and mother migrating to their summer feeding grounds, the tragedy of an exhausted elephant being attacked by a pride of lions, and cranes trying migrate over the peaks of the Himalayas. The scenery was incredible, of course, though I found the editing a little choppy. I spent most of the movie wondering how in the world photographers were able to get it all on film. It takes a brave person to film 30 hungry lions in the dark.
Another memorable moment: "Mia, is that a cheetah or a leopard?" I asked.
"It's a cheetah. Leopards live in the jungle and have rings around their spots."
She sure set me straight, but I was pretty proud of her for knowing something like that. Last week she also noted that an elephant on TV was an African elephant because its ears were shaped like the continent of Africa. Years of playing Zoo Tycoon, watching Animal Planet shows, and just paying attention to all things animal, I guess. I'm sure I learned these things at some point, but I think the part of my brain in which animal facts are stored must have been taken over by the ability to schedule things. Sadly.
A final point of interest from the movie: The boreal forest, where the northern hemisphere changes from arctic to forest is a nearly unbroken ring around the globe. It hosts something like a third of the world's trees and produces a whole lot of our oxygen. This one particular image -- of a ring of trees around the upper part of the planet -- reminded me of earth as an integrated whole. I'll avoid espousing about needing to save our planet -- we all know this. But I can't help myself in reminding that we're living in a time of change, and just one small act of care a day adds up.
(400 words)
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
The End of Busy
I ran into my neighbor at the grocery today. She's an older woman -- retired, kids and grandkids all living in other places. I've always found her very sweet, pretty, and friendly. She used to keep a garden across street at the end of our driveway, but it was a big undertaking so she's letting it go. I don't see her much since she doesn't work on that garden anymore, as her house is up a long driveway in the woods. In years past, we'd inspect the maple sap buckets her sons would hang from their maple trees in the spring, but they haven't sugared in a couple years. "The boys are just too busy with their families now," she explains.
She raised her three kids in our neighborhood, along with the people from whom we bought our house. She also worked at the high school for some time, though I can't recall what she did. Every time I do see her, she's always interested in what my kids are up to.
"How old is the baby now?" she asked me today.
"He's in Kindergarten, can you believe it? He is starting to get involved in things like tee-ball...complicates our schedule...". Yada yada yada.
Then she gets a sad sort of look on her face. Like she remembers those days so clearly and is really lonely without them.
I ask about her grandkids, and two are in Vermont (but not in our town) and two are in Georgia. She seems genuinely sad to tell me this too.
She has been watching for frog eggs in her pond so my daughter can collect the tadpoles when they hatch (and watch them grow [die] in a tank). She also mentions that she heard a bunch of kids playing/yelling in our yard the other day, and she thought it was such a wonderful sound.
I'm afraid of being her someday.
Listening to kids playing and wishing they were mine. Knowing that mine are busy with their own lives and not close by.
Clearly, I need to keep tabs on this fear so that co-dependency issues don't stunt either my "growth" or that of my kids. And clearly I need to keep blogging for the next 20+ years so I have something to fill my time in my golden years. Or there's always golf, knitting, and travel.
OK. So I won't worry about it. That's pointless. But I will aim to remember the look on my neighbor's face so that I can better "let it be" and not wallow in being "sooooo busy." In fact, I'd like to take that word "busy" out of my vocabulary because everyone is busy, and it connotes something frustrating and exasperating. And I'm not frustrated by being busy. I like it.
Sidebar: My great aunt Elizabeth's nickname was Busy. I think her parents gave her that nickname when she was young, and we never called her anything but. And from what I remember, she was indeed busy. She wore an apron a lot, so I've always assumed she was busy cleaning. Or playing her organ. Or traveling around the country on bus tours. I wonder if she liked being Busy. She died 12ish years ago, so I can't ask.
So tomorrow, I'll pack lunches, herd kids out the door, work a little, then fill an hour with a craft project in Max's Kindergarten class. Then more work for a few hours. William will be home with strep, so maybe we'll read a chapter in the Harry Potter book we're enjoying together. Then lunch and a long-overdue haircut. Followed by more work. After the bus drops Mia and Max off, we'll tackle homework and an early dinner then taxi to the horse farm for riding and the ballpark for a game. After bedtime, it's likely I'll work a little more. Busy? No. Well, yes, but let's go with engaged, complete, and happy instead.
She raised her three kids in our neighborhood, along with the people from whom we bought our house. She also worked at the high school for some time, though I can't recall what she did. Every time I do see her, she's always interested in what my kids are up to.
"How old is the baby now?" she asked me today.
"He's in Kindergarten, can you believe it? He is starting to get involved in things like tee-ball...complicates our schedule...". Yada yada yada.
Then she gets a sad sort of look on her face. Like she remembers those days so clearly and is really lonely without them.
I ask about her grandkids, and two are in Vermont (but not in our town) and two are in Georgia. She seems genuinely sad to tell me this too.
She has been watching for frog eggs in her pond so my daughter can collect the tadpoles when they hatch (and watch them grow [die] in a tank). She also mentions that she heard a bunch of kids playing/yelling in our yard the other day, and she thought it was such a wonderful sound.
I'm afraid of being her someday.
Listening to kids playing and wishing they were mine. Knowing that mine are busy with their own lives and not close by.
Clearly, I need to keep tabs on this fear so that co-dependency issues don't stunt either my "growth" or that of my kids. And clearly I need to keep blogging for the next 20+ years so I have something to fill my time in my golden years. Or there's always golf, knitting, and travel.
OK. So I won't worry about it. That's pointless. But I will aim to remember the look on my neighbor's face so that I can better "let it be" and not wallow in being "sooooo busy." In fact, I'd like to take that word "busy" out of my vocabulary because everyone is busy, and it connotes something frustrating and exasperating. And I'm not frustrated by being busy. I like it.
Sidebar: My great aunt Elizabeth's nickname was Busy. I think her parents gave her that nickname when she was young, and we never called her anything but. And from what I remember, she was indeed busy. She wore an apron a lot, so I've always assumed she was busy cleaning. Or playing her organ. Or traveling around the country on bus tours. I wonder if she liked being Busy. She died 12ish years ago, so I can't ask.
So tomorrow, I'll pack lunches, herd kids out the door, work a little, then fill an hour with a craft project in Max's Kindergarten class. Then more work for a few hours. William will be home with strep, so maybe we'll read a chapter in the Harry Potter book we're enjoying together. Then lunch and a long-overdue haircut. Followed by more work. After the bus drops Mia and Max off, we'll tackle homework and an early dinner then taxi to the horse farm for riding and the ballpark for a game. After bedtime, it's likely I'll work a little more. Busy? No. Well, yes, but let's go with engaged, complete, and happy instead.
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