Stories about Nobody

The other day after rock-climbing class (yes!  it's the best!), we stopped at DQ and decided to take turns telling each other little stories.  Here was Tommy's entry, which amused us all greatly and set the trend for the next hour:

"Once upon a time, nobody went into a cave.  The end."

Rocky Mountain High

Our kids have fallen in love with this John Denver song; they request it over and over again in the car, and I'll catch Anne Peyton in particular humming the lyrics. In the car, she belts out the refrain; I'll look back and see her mouth wide open! :)

I love it too, so here are the lyrics:

He was born in the summer of his 27th year,
coming home to a place he'd never been before.
He left yesterday behind him,
you might say he was born again,
might say he found a key for every door.

When he first came to the mountains
His life was far away
on the road and hanging by a song.
But the strings already broken
and he doesn't really care,
it keeps changin' fast, and it don't last for long.

It's a Colorado Rocky Mountain High,
I've seen it raining fire in the sky
The shadows from the starlight are softer than a lullabye.
Rocky Mountain High, ...in Colorado....
Rocky Mountain High.

He climbed cathedral mountains, he saw silver clouds below,
saw everything as far as you can see.
And they say that he got crazy once and that he
tried to touch the sun,
and he lost a friend*, but kept the memory.

Now he walks in quiet solitude, the forest and the stream,
seeking grace in every step he takes,
his sight is turned inside himself, to try and
understand, the serenity of a clear blue mountain lake.
And the Colorado Rocky Mountain High,
I've seen it raining fire in the sky
You can talk to God and listen to the casual reply.
Rocky Mountain High, ....in Colorado....
Rocky Mountain High.

Now his life is full of wonder,
but his heart still knows some fear,
of the simple things he can not comprehend.
Why they try to tear the mountains down**
to bring in a couple more.
More people, more scars upon the land.

It's the Colorado Rocky Mountain High,
I've seen it raining fire in the sky
I know he'd be a poorer man if he never saw an eagle fly
Rocky Mountain high

It's the Colorado Rocky Mountain High,
I've seen it raining fire in the sky.
Friends around the camp fire and everybody's high....
Rocky Mountain High, Rocky Mountain High,
Rocky Mountain High,
Rocky Mountain High.

* This lyric always generates much discussion in the back seat. Anne Peyton had already asked me about it, and fortunately I didn't have to get into the fact that the friend died (she's pretty sensitive about that topic).  I think she just think he got lost.  Today Tommy said "he lost his friend?" and AP replied knowingly "yep, he lost his friend".  But then she wanted to know if it was his best friend or not.

** This was another lyric that caught their attention.  Naturally, they don't like the sound of tearing the mountains down

Preschool Beginnings

A shopper, I am not. And while I often fool myself into thinking that shopping with the kids could be fun, historically it has NOT been! Picky, distracted, unreasonable...these are just a few of the words that describe our children when it comes to shopping & clothes! :)

But last night, Anne Peyton and I set out, just the two of us, to find her a pair of shoes to wear for her first day of "real" preschool today. Our daycare provider does an excellent preschool in her home, but THIS is going to be at Kendallvue Elementary School and there will be 15 other kids in her class (vs. 5 or so). She'll go 2 mornings a week, on Wednesdays & Fridays.

We started off on the right foot (npi) because she had been in a wonderful mood ever since getting home from daycare, where today was the first day of preschool there, too. I think the return of structure after a summer without had alot to do with that. She was chatty (unsolicited updates on Arielle's first day of kindergarten, monologue about "deading" (killing) spiders & other bugs, etc), helpful (requested to scrub the kitchen floor), and compliant (actually cleaned her plate and changed clothes when I asked her to).

Our first stop was my favorite secondhand kids' store: Once Upon a Child. We dove into the size 10 shoe bin and she actually LIKED the first pair of shoes she tried on! Then, she spied a classic brown suede Mary Jane without its mate. It surprised me that she liked the look of it (ie, it wasn't pink!), and even more that she liked the way it felt, as she walked up & down the aisles to test it out. Rather than distracting herself with the play area, she actually engaged in helping me find the mate, and was very excited when we finally found it.

I was drunk on 4 year-old good attitude at this point, so we moved on to the clothes aisle even though that wasn't the purpose of the trip. I'd hold up a shirt and asked her if she liked it. In the past, she would look at it for 3 seconds and ignore the question. This time, she said "hmmmm, let me try that on" with great enthusiasm. The horsey sweater passed the test. Then, SHE found a brown leopard-print skirt (actually rather classy looking) on the rack and pulled it off with excitement (this has never happened). She immediately tried it on, and then I found a mini brown sweater that looked like it would match. What do you call those cute-but-not-very-functional sweaters that land just below your chest? Anyway, it was one of those. I held it up to her and she said "what in the world is THAT, momma?". I had to LOL. She tried it on and looked adorable in it, so the outfit came home to us to be modeled to Daddy & Tommy.

Next stop was Famous Footwear because we still needed some good ole' sneakers. We found a pair that was slightly big (but not too big), but she was less than enthusiastic about the fact that they were sneakers. It must be known that in the past, many a meltdown has involved the wearing of sneakers; we're talking a BIG deal here. Not that this stage of life is over for her, but I will say that after 20 minutes of trying on various other shoes, and then trying the sneakers on once again, she said "ok, momma, I'll wear these to school tomorrow". WHAT did she say? I hadn't even expected her to agree to buy them, let alone wear them to school on her first day.

She went to bed telling me she's "ess-cited" about her first day of preschool tomorrow, even though she might be a bit shy. Despite a late-night potty & water wake-up, she woke up bright-eyed and with continued good nature. I fully expected her to change her mind about the tennis shoes, but, nope! After a small photo session on the front steps, John dropped Tommy off at Marilyn & Jerry's and then came back to get us girls. She remained excited, albeit shy (she clung to us for quite awhile and had to be kindly pried away by the teacher when it was time to say goodbye) and we left without incident, proud and incredulous that our baby girl is now a schoolgirl.

Lizzie Gets Lost

Monday, May 11

Anne Peyton's best friend Jackie came over today, on this beautiful, perfect spring day. After lunch I took the kids down to the lake. Sadly, there appear to be no frogs or turtles inhabiting this area any longer. The old-timers who have been here for years tell me this was not always the case, but something has happened. Regardless, Anne Peyton manages to find a limp little lizard in the sand. I am thinking he's dead, but it turns out he's a rubber lizard used as bait. She becomes quite enamored of this little creature, and aptly names her "Lizzie". Lizzie comes home with us, is put in a place of honor on a special blanket in a special basket, and is lovingly looked after.

Right after Jackie and some other impromptu (the best kind, I still think!) guests leave (at about 7pm!!) AP begins to cry, inconsolably. Finally she manages to explain that she has lost Lizzie. She holds up 2 cm of rubber lizard tail and blubbers "and all I have left is her tail". More intense crying. The entire family joins in the search but she is nowhere to be found. Honestly, I'm not sure if I have ever seen AP this upset. We convince her to wash up and eat some dinner and we would resume the search afterwards. While I'm preparing dinner, John manages to distract her with some "what was your favorite part of the day?" conversation and all is going well until she opens her clenched fist, looks down, and sees the lonely lizard tail. Hell breaks loose again. She is impossible during dinner.

My frustration with her is obvious, and at one point (after I have praised Tommy for finishing his rice, I think), she wimpers "Mommy, it makes me sad when you aren't proud of me". WOW. John and I both said later we have never heard her utter such a statement. Of course I told her all the things I was proud of, etc, etc. But very interesting to have this insight into her psyche (thanks mostly to a very active day and an empty tummy).

After quietly checking with John, I offer that if our next search is unsuccessful, maybe daddy can take her to the store to find a new Lizzie. And that if we manage to find the old Lizzie even after that, then she will have TWO Lizzies.

Her expression changes instantly: mouth opens wide; eyes open wide. A look of sheer excitement. She joyfully states, "Mommy! I want to buy TWO Lizzies at the store!!".

Later she does lament that the original Lizzie might get into some kind of "trouble" out there, but I assure her that Lizzie's camoflage and lack of movement will do her a world of good. But when AP returns from the sportsmens store with a WHOLE BAG (9, to be exact) of new Lizzies, she is exuberant. As is Tommy. So as I type this, AP has 4 Lizzies sleeping on her bedside table, and Tommy has one, sitting on the shelf looking down at him.

It's awfully tempting to get this little girl a hermit crab or a turtle or a hamster or something, but gosh, why bother?

To Hug a Mockingbird

Monday, May 4th - The kids and I are here at my mom's house in lovely Greensboro, Georgia and one of the treats is that I get a bed and a room all to myself (I love reading in bed but I always feel bad interfering w/John's sleep because he usually falls asleep faster than I do). I've come prepared with a can't-put-down book recommended by my Radical bookclub friends (a YA novel called "Jellicoe Road").

So I'm reading and reading and reading, then Mom pops in at 12:30 on a bathroom trip and gives me this "are you sure it's a good idea to stay up this late reading?" look (hmmm, also something I don't get at home, for better or for worse!). So a half hour later, I begrudgingly put the book down. The bed is comfortable, the windows are open, the breeze is cool, and I am happily drifting off to sleep. Then, just a few minutes later, the resident mockingbird decides that NOW is a good time to show off the ten thousand different songs in his repertoire.

Fortunately, I am a great audience because I am very relaxed and in a very good mood. I lie there, laughing with delight at this dingbat bird who is singing in the pitch dark, apparently because he has a captive audience? I even pull out my camera and put it on video mode so I can capture the sound (out a dark window). But he goes on for an hour, and I cannot fall asleep. I COULD just close the windows but instead I decide that is an excuse to turn on the light and keep reading. Which I do, and finally finish the book about 2 hours later, 3:30am. Mr. Mockingbird (who I later learned via google is probably a young unmated male, as this is quite common for them) is still singing, but, as if on cue, finished up shortly thereafter.

What was particularly neat about this is that the book I was reading had a reference to "To Kill Mockingbird". Specifically (page 105):

Mr. Palmer: She calls her friend 'Mrs. Dubose.' That's all I know. Have you heard of her?

Taylor: Yes, I say sleepily. She lived in the same street as Jem and Scout Finch.

I, for one, did not remember who Mrs. Dubose was. By the end of the book, I knew. And knew that rereading "To Kill A Mockingbird" would be my next indulgence. Being in a small southern town and discussing with mom the segregation that still exists there, and then reading a reference to the book would have been enough of a prompt, but being serenaded by a mockingbird that night was just too perfect!

Jack and the Beanstalk

I really do my best to tell stories to the kids, but sometimes I just don't have it in me (I wish I came by it more naturally!). I'm not sure why I didn't think of this before, but I got some help from the library last week. We checked out an audiorecording of a man telling some of the classic fairytales, including Jack and the Beanstalk. We listened to that one on the way to the zoo today (Mondays: my day off with the kids-yay!).

Tommy wasn't terribly interested. Anne Peyton was, but she kept piping in with "what did that man say?", etc. Maybe it's because the storyteller had an Aussie accent? If so, sad, but regardless, I got in the habit of pausing it every 30 seconds or so and paraphrasing what had just happened. Apparently that did the trick, because the next 7 times she asked to hear it there was no explanation required.

What's funny to me is that I didn't remember anything about the story except that Jack climbed a beanstalk. My God, it's awful! First, Jack trades the family cow, Milky White, for some magic beans without explaining to the recipient that she is no longer producing milk (buyer beware is true in fairy tales too). Then the giant's wife invites Jack to "safely" hide inside an OVEN until the giant falls asleep. I had to have a serious talk with the kids since they are, after all, such big hide-n-seek fans and are undoubtedly always on the lookout for new & creative places to hide. Then Jack steals a bag of gold from the giant and his kind wife. Instead of using the gold to buy another cow so that his family can be self-sufficient again, he brazenly climbs back up and steals a hen who lays golden eggs on demand ("LAY!"). One would THINK that would be plenty, but no, he climbs up a third time and steals a golden harp. Then as the giant rightfully chases him back down the beanstalk, Jack chops down the stalk and giant falls to his death. Granted, it's not nice for the giant to eat little boys, but Jack wasn't exactly on his best behavior, either! And, he was fairly warned several times.

I enjoyed my conversation with Anne Peyton afterwards. Initially she exclaimed "good!" when the giant died. But we talked about how it really wasn't so nice that the giant was killed. She pondered this and eventually came back with a "ug idea" (her way of saying a "good idea", which tells me that we don't enunciate enough around here). She thought Jack should have put the giant in jail instead. We didn't get into the fact that he hadn't actually committed a crime and it was actually Jack who had...but I had to admire her thought process. She reiterated several times, with conviction (no pun intended) that jail was the better alternative to "making someone dead". Maybe a little anti-capital-punishment activist in the making??

She also asked questions like "was the giant's house big enough for him to fit inside?", "why was that boy's mommy angry at him?", etc. OK, maybe some of them were a teensy bit obvious, but again (and like any good mom would!), I admired the thought process immensely.

Ultimately, it was a good lesson for me because I have often lamented about all the bad media out there - socializing promiscuity and conspicuous consumption for our children at much too young an age. One of my grad school profs wisely told me there is no way to hide it from your children, and in fact it wouldn't be a good idea even if there were (temporarily). Instead, the best we parents can do is to teach them critical thinking skills. I have often wondered about my ability to do so, but I took these conversations as a decent first attempt. Also, the idea of "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" occured to me as well. Despite all its shortcomings (IMHO), like any good story - it is full of creativity and suspense. Not to mention a happy ending.

Inauguration Day 2009

Thanks to John for the gifts of a plane ticket and 2 inauguration tix (which were thanks to his friend Andy Speth who is chief of staff for Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin!), I had the opportunity of a lifetime to witness President Obama take his oath of office on January 20th! The icing on the cake was being able to stay with my dear friends Denise & Bill Sisson, who live just across the river in Arlington.

Sunday afternoon Denise whisked me away from Reagan Int'l Airport straight to the Roslyn neighborhood of Arlington, where we took the metro to the wonderfully-named Foggy Bottom station and then hoofed it to the National Mall for the "We Are One" concert.

Hoards exiting the metro, headed for the concert.

It was too exciting to really pay much attention to the who's who list of performers (Bruce Springsteen, U2, Stevie Wonder, Beyonce, Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Sheryl Crow, Will.I.Am, Usher, Mary J. Blige, etc). The concert was held at the Lincoln Memorial, but the closest you could get was the Washington Memorial. The crowd was about 500K strong, and it was just a preview of the energy and camaraderie we'd see on Tuesday. My favorite example of this was in line for a women's bathroom at the George Washington University student center. No surprise, they had run out of TP hours ago. One smart woman had brought her own. But instead of quietly using it inside her stall and saving it for later, she simply pulled off a few squares and passed the roll behind her. Each woman in line did the same, and continued passing it back until it was gone.

Signs of patriotism were abundant, and moving.

It was also a real treat to meet up with Ken Kozicki and his friend Craig that afternoon! It was Ken's text-messaged account of his spontaneous bike ride to Chicago's Grant Park on election night, and the stranger-hugging celebration there, that inspired me to be part of the inauguration crowds. We met up with Bill for dinner later on, and then all went back to the Sissons' for a few hours to watch part of the concert (and youtube videos!) on their big screen.

Tuesday we arose at 4am (about 3 hours of sleep for me, who stayed up late, bubbly with excitement, emailing everyone to spread the love), found a spot at a parking garage in Roslyn, and made our way to the metro with a thousand or five of our fellow Americans. It took over an hour to go 2 stops, and it was a bit creepy sitting for long periods inside the tunnels. But finally we emerged and began what would be a 10-hour odyssey of pedestrian navigation. We (and everyone else in the vicinity) were delighted to see this creative tribute as we were exiting the metro.

We made our way down Constitution Avenue and realized that the "Blue Gate" for us blue ticket-holders was on the opposite site of the Capitol. Thanks to Denise's local knowledge, we were able to loop around behind the Capitol instead of trying to fight the crowds in front of it. Finally we arrived at the LINE for the gate, just a few minutes before it was due to "open" at 8am. At a little after 8, the inching began. And continued...and continued..for about 3 hours.

This is a view of the "line" behind us. It was FRIGID but we were all in great spirits. Never have I been with a group of such friendly, supportive, good-humored people especially in such uncomfortable and frustrating circumstances; it was really remarkable.

Chants of "Yes, We Can!" eventually turned into "What's Going On?" (ever so politely), but even the police officer nearby admitted he hadn't a clue. As the time approached 11:30am, we began realizing that our coveted blue tickets might not be so special after all. Unless something dramatically changed, we would never make it through the security screening in time to witness the inauguration. And from where we were standing, we could neither see nor hear anything going on on the Capitol steps. The once-boisterous crowd grew quiet; I have no doubt we were all thinking the same thing - the injustice of making such a long trip, and enduring the crowds and the cold, only to be caught out of eye- and ear-shot of the inauguration. Maybe that cozy sofa in front of the TV at home was the way to go after all. I was ready to cry, but Denise was convinced we could maneuver our way to a better view. And that we did. Ultimately we made it to one of the public viewing spots, where we could at least hear the ceremy, and even had a decent view of a jumbotron far off in the distance.

yep, we had 'em ready alright...

This, ultimately, was our view of the ceremony. No complaints in the end!

It was absolutely thrilling to witness Obama take that oath. To have a crowd of 1.8 million gathered for that moment, and respecting that moment with their collective silence, and then their shared celebration...it's beyond words.

Leaving DC after the ceremony was a story unto itself! Even the police officers and official volunteers did not understand the complex system of roadblocks, security fences, and closures that had been set up. We were directed towards one "exit" only to find that it was closed, and the only way back was to go back where we started and inquire from there. You've heard of a corn maze; this was a human being maze. Due to the size of the crowd, it was impossible to know whether exits were blocked, until you got there. After the first couple of dead ends, people who had aleady turned around and were doubling back began sharing their knowledge ("You've got to turn around! They won't let you go that way!"). I had just finished 'The Grapes of Wrath' for book club, and was reminded of the Joad family and all of the others who fled the Dust Bowl to the promised land of California. Although they confronted many families who had already learned the terrible truth, they had to go and find out for themselves. Finally we (meaning thousands of us) found an open route, and although we were shoulder-to-shoulder, we were at least moving. Until, that is, we came to a dead stop. It was impossible to know why we were stopping. Finally it became apparent that it was a simple intersection of human bodies. Thousands of people trying to go in 2 or 3 different directions all at the same time. I tried to relax and just soak up being in the middle of this melting pot cross-section of America. "Hello, fellow American!"

On a March day in Philadelphia almost a year ago, Obama said "we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place but we all want to move in the same direction - toward a better future for our children and our grandchildren". I am so inspired by those words, and can't wait to be part of Organizing for America.

But it strikes me as funny how apropos those words were to our trivial little challenge of getting home that day! We formed human chains with strangers of every color who were going the same direction. Finally, finally we arrived at the Potomac, and by then had concluded we would simply walk out of DC rather than attempt a metro or bus. I couldn't wait to get home, but I hated to leave.

Wrecking Up

Juxtaposed to that happy comment Anne Peyton made last month, recently she has an affinity for saying, in her angriest moments, "Mommy, you are WRECKING UP my life". Damn! I've got to say, that one took me back the first time I heard it! Depending on her mood, tiredness and hunger status, and other unknowable causes, something as simple as tightening her carseat straps or requiring her to clean her plate might elicit this response.