Parenting is tricky: teaching them to walk without fear, yet still watch out for that edge.
between a rock and a wet place
28 Sunday Jun 2009
Posted in Motherhood, Photography
Category Archives: Photography
open the windows
11 Monday May 2009
Posted in good reads, Motherhood, Photography
Tags
Barbara Park, books, Children's Book Council, Children's Book Week, Dan Yaccarino, GeekDad, independent bookseller, Jon Scieszka, Mary Pope Osborne
Today marks the beginning of Children’s Book Week, May 11 – 17. What a perfect week to celebrate the tradition of reading with our children and out loud to our children. Surprise them with a new book from library or for them to keep! (Ideally, let’s make our purchase at an independent bookseller — they need our support.)
Click the tab “For Kids” on the website, and find a downloadable bookmark and door hanger designed by artist Dan Yaccarino; and story starters by authors such as Mary Pope Osborne, Barbara Park, Jon Scieszka and more — they provide the opening paragraph to encourage younger kids to write their own tales.
Teens are encouraged to write their own book reviews and post them.
From the Children’s Book Council:
“A celebration of the written word, Children’s Book Week introduces young people to new authors and ideas in schools, libraries, homes and bookstores. Through Children’s Book Week, the Children’s Book Council encourages young people and their caregivers to discover the complexity of the world beyond their own experience through books.”
Even GeekDad, a Wired Magazine blog, is on board. I love their tagline, “raising geek generation 2.0”. Read on, geekdads!
This is also the week that the Children’s Book Council announces the winners of the Children’s Choice Awards. The list of books nominated for the Children’s Choice Awards is broken out by age group, through teens.
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I love books.
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Reading opens new windows into the world for all of us.
day at the museum
24 Friday Apr 2009
Posted in Motherhood, Photography, Writing
On a recent trip to Chicago, we had the opportunity to visit some incredible museums. It was not quite the famed Million Museum March of family lore, but we packed a lot into a couple days. This handsome fellow graced the atrium of the Field Museum of Natural History. Turns out our local museum center membership gave us free admission to many of Chicago’s best, so we were able to come and go without those pesky fees. The program is called the ASTC (Association of Science-Technology Centers) Travel Passport Program. What a deal!
We watched the movie Night at the Museum quite a while ago, but the scenes still fueled our imaginations — at every turn we would stumble upon something that would be very creepy to see come to life after closing hours… Usually art museums are more my scene, but experiencing the Museum of Science and Industry through the eyes of the boys (all of them) made it much more rewarding and fun.
Reconnecting with some wonderful cousins of mine, meal after meal of fabulous food, the feeling of staying downtown in a vibrant city — some of my favorite things. Another unforgettable moment: doing my first book signings. Not formal signings, just signing the stock on the shelves and seeing the “autographed copy” sticker be placed on the front. It was a thrill for this beginning writer, no doubt about it.
swimming laps
14 Tuesday Apr 2009
Posted in Motherhood, Photography, seasons
Ahhh, the zoo in the springtime, for me the best time of year to go. The summer — not so much: heat and humidity don’t mix well with the wafting aromas of african animal feces. But now, the zoo puts on a wonderful floral show with the daffodils, tulips and hyacinths sharing the grounds with the flowering pear trees, magnolias and forsythias. Oh, and the animals are more active when it is not stinkin’ hot.
Bonus!
This polar bear was doing laps around her enclosure. I’m guessing summer in the midwest is not her favorite time either. We watched her for quite a long time, from two different vantage points; we were fascinated by the methodical way she did the circuit. The arm strokes were nearly identical on each pass around, and she would touch certain rocks along the back wall in exactly the same place each time.
At the risk of anthropomorphic musing, I could not help wondering what she was thinking or feeling or whatever polar bears do. Did it bring her comfort, in these artificial surroundings, to go round and round in a pattern? Did swimming laps work all the energy out of her body that must be pre-programmed into a polar bear’s DNA for survival? Was she just bored out of her mind? Whatever the reason, she was still swimming the same loop when we walked by two hours later.
We have not been to the zoo very often in the last few years ever. Trips to the zoo never ended well when the kids were little, so I became zoo-averse early on. When I see young mothers now, pushing their strollers with 1…2…3… kids in tow, none of them look like they are having a nervous breakdown. Huh. I’ll just say it is so much more fun to take the kids to the zoo now that they are a) ambulatory b) able to read all the cool information about the animals themselves c) not obsessed with riding the mini choo choo zoo train umpteen times at $5 a pop. Other than the Little One being suddenly starving every 100 yards (because there is SO much delicious, affordable food at the zoo and the smell of monkey poo really whets the appetite); it was a fun day. We’ll just assume he was growing another inch taller that afternoon.
easter baskets
12 Sunday Apr 2009
Posted in Photography, seasons
Tags
My Easter basket always contained a can of ripe olives.
Sure, I was a big fan of the chocolate bunny (hollow or solid), the peeps, malted-milk-ball robin eggs the and jelly beans. I loved the egg hunt around the house for real, brightly dyed, hard-boiled eggs. We would usually find almost all of them, which only became problematic a few days later. But the ripe olives were my favorite Easter treat. At the big Easter family dinner, there might be black olives in the relish tray along with the carrot and celery sticks; however I could really only eat five of those in good conscience (one stuck on the end of each finger), since they were for all the guests. But that was OK — I had a can of my own to eat later. I think I ate the olives and peeps in separate sittings.
Santa never got the tip about how much I liked olives. He could have saved the elves a lot of toy-building (and skipped the pink turtleneck) by just leaving me a case of pitted mediums under the tree. Holiday hindsight = 20/20.
Wishing you a basketful of whatever makes you happy! I’ll offer tulips for a start.
is this a happy face?
01 Wednesday Apr 2009
Posted in get along like cats and dogs, Photography
Tags
Is she smiling? Sometimes it is hard to tell. Could be maniacal plotting of the dog’s untimely demise.
migrations
21 Saturday Mar 2009
Posted in Photography, seasons
Tags
For those of you in the United States and Canada, I found this site to track the hummingbird migration for 2009.
I do not have an official map from the AARP, but I think the retirees heading north from Florida should be following roughly the same migratory patterns. We have found that if you feed them, they will stay for approximately 48 hours; then they start checking the Weather Channel for good driving conditions.
The butterflies cannot be far behind. Happy Spring, everyone!
neutered dog pal
10 Tuesday Mar 2009
Posted in get along like cats and dogs, Photography
spring is in the air
05 Thursday Mar 2009
Posted in Photography, seasons
Here’s a little ditty from my youth:
“Spring is sprung, the grass is riz. I wonder where the flowers is?”
Wow, that looks even more bizarre written out than it did playing over and over in my head the last 40 springs.
Yes, folks, now we know why I became obsessed with grammar and words.
Anyway, the flowers are riz blooming. The gold, then the yellow, followed by white, lavender and purple crocus, opening in that order. That — plus the cat weaving maniacally around our ankles and purring like an outboard engine — both sure signs that spring is nearly here.
hope springs eternal
04 Wednesday Mar 2009
Posted in Photography, seasons
I have planned to snap some photos of the crocus in my garden as they begin to peek out from the cold ground. Crocus are my favorite flower; they are to me the first beautiful color after the winter of gray and brown and white. The grand idea was to document their emergence as a symbol of hope that spring will, indeed, arrive on its own time — with day-by-day photojournalistic updates of them poking out their little green arms and gradually exploding in bloom. Now that I write it down, it does not sound that exciting… (as in, maybe this summer I could take pictures of the lawn and you could watch the grass grow, etc. etc. )
On my way to the *mailbox* today, I learned something: instead of spending my time stalking the mailman, if I just look down at where I am, today, I will find what I am looking for.
It’s too late for the crocus cam, but never too late to learn.
