Growing Versions

If you want to have your mind blown just a little, ask a four year old for some examples of opposites. The official version is not yet cemented in their minds. The concept is still like gel. Opposite of work?  Bouncy Castles. Opposite of jumping? Flying. Opposite of parachuting?  Falling.

On the way home last night, the light was saturating every crevice and following us all the way home. How about you?

1. A vigilant guard, clutching a pager, primed to call 911 the second a bad guy comes along. 2. The trap is set, ready to be sprung.   3. The classic books-that-will-cause-out-of-control-sliding is set up.(based on Home Alone logic model) 4. Enter bad guy...a cascade of trap lines spring into action.

You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.-Pedro Neruda

A few days back I wrote a piece about my reaction to hearing that kids aren't taught how to write cursive in school anymore.  In the process of thinking and writing about it and bringing it up at every social event in the past 10 days, it got me to thinking about something else.  I woke up one morning fresh from a dream. In the dream my grandmother was still alive.  This seems to be a recurring one.  What remained in the morning light was the image of her handwriting.  It lingered on the edge of my mind's eye. I kept frantically flicking my eyes back to what I remember of her penmanship. I can remember its essence.  It was rigidly controlled but beautifully shaped and uniform.  It may have gotten a bit more wobbly over the years but its dignified and practised lines are instantly recognizable to me. My grandmother wrote in a lot of my mother's books and there are notes and cards and letters and matchbooks around.  Now I'm determined to fin...

Occasionally, I will come across Barbie wedged in the back of the couch, or tossed under the bed. Sometimes she shows up in an old half-unpacked beach bag or upside down next to the bathtub.  I find her half-dressed, naked or crisply turned out in a full ball gown. Every once in a while, I find her dressed in such a unique way that it takes my breath away. My daughter cannot sew yet, but I think the seeds are there.  

"Nature is commonplace.  Imitation is more interesting. Gertrude Stein." This is my kid's version of a laptop.  I am really loving the unorthodox key board. Recently, I came across another ingenious version of a kid made laptop made by a child of  Artbarblog.com  who, out of desperation, no access to an ipad on a sick day, came up with another version. Photo: Barbara at Artbarblog.com

Here is a charming little video that I came across thanks to my friend Lisa's post on Facebook. It is a movie that honours an intricate tale told to the filmmaker by a 6 year old.  It's about Asa Bear and Toby Mouse and it's about the possibilities of making up something as you go.  And it is also about not being afraid to change things midstream to make sure the story is as good as you think it can be.  It's also so much about the listener of the story and what she gets out of it.  If we listen properly, you just never know what might happen next.  The filmmaker discovers a lot about herself from this story and its teller. The results are fanciful and outrageous and moving and true all at the same time.  Watching it made me wonder, what would happen if I listened intently and faithfully to all the details all the way through my daughter's stories?  How would everything be different if I didn't start planning the supper/the laundry/work in the ...

It turns out that I didn't need to buy pants or under ware or socks. I just needed to put away my laundry and unpack my suitcases from trips I took 6 months ago. This principle applies to most things I think I need. Check out this great video by Dan Mangan for his song "Sold": The scene with the mom and the kid at the end was a little too close for comfort but also a good kick start for a conversation about consumerism directed at kids.

It's a restaurant. It's a tent. It's a fort. It's a house. It's missing something. It's perfect. It's going to hold me. The cat likes it. It has a shelf. It has a bed. It has lights. I'm going to eat my supper in here. I'm going to sleep in here. Don't move it Mama.

I used to think cursive was another language. Now, I'm beginning to realize that in a way it is.  Handwriting opens up different pathways in the brain than printing does, just like acquiring another vocabulary does. I heard on the radio yesterday that kids aren't learning how to do it anymore. Some kids grow up not knowing the word "signature". Hear the story here:  Students are not learning to write in cursive. My daughter has been practising on her own for a while now. Until I heard this story, I had underestimated her efforts. I figured she 'd eventually get it formally taught to her. Now I'm not so sure. Kids who have learning disabilities benefit from learning cursive because it is a tactile skill that assists with listening. Not only that, but a thank you text is just not as nice as a handwritten thank you note. What do you think?

I saw this and thought "melting edge".  I went home and I wondered who else had thought about melting edges.  Theirs are two very different versions, but they both make their own kind of perfect sense. The melting edge   Another melting edge

When I was little, we lived in an older home and there was a little room under the stairs.  It was just a little space that happened to have a door, but it became an apartment.  A place to be that could be just about anything. I can still picture the upturned cardboard box and the wedge of smuggled (and dried out) cheese that made that little cubbyhole into a home.  It even got an address. Throughout my childhood, I always relished the space a blanket thrown over two chairs could create.  The inside of my sweater became a tent containing a kitchenette. An attic of an old church was converted to my one bedroom apartment. It's been the same for my kids.   Last summer we got bunk beds and it just took a blanket getting accidentally draped over the edge of the top one to the bottom to get them hiding out. The tree near our house is often a home.  It's equipped with a complex pulley system for delivering laundry and food. A pile of pillows and ...

I'm undaunted in my quest to amuse myself by constantly changing my hair. Hilary Clinton

I just heard this  interview  on CBC's Q about rethinking the 40 hour work week.  A four day work week could give me more time to take care of things, without sacrificing productivity and earning power. Hmmmmm. When I do my accounts, I do not include in the tally the following costs that I  incur on a regular basis: -frozen, then re-heated food -rotting, limp, inedible vegetables and fruits -library fines -artificial lighting -increased alcohol intake -"just getting through the day" mentality -unread bedtime stories -unwritten Christmas cards and unmade personal phone calls -unsaid (both difficult and very pleasant) conversations with my husband I won't add it all up because I am bound to take it personally and feel bad about myself which is not my point.  However, perhaps its time I start doing some new math.

"I wish we could start over our world is this world going to keep going and going? I wish the world didn't spin around i wish the world would just spin to daytime forever because I don't like night time. because you always have to sleep at night time when I always come down for a snack you always say no, but you keep saying no because i don't like tonight." -S. Price Light on dark snow. 2013

We are trying our best to be "hands off" on Saturdays.  We want our kids to benefit from the fertile ground of doing nothing and getting bored. We want also want to rest. We want them to dig deep out of boredom and create worlds in which they can inhabit for a little while, worlds that are very different from their own.  The trouble is I know staying uninvolved, save for preventing injuries and feeding them, is important to their development, but I keep getting roped in.   "Can you help me design a super hero costume?" " Can you make a parachute for me?" "Can you play school with me?"   I want to spend time with them, after a busy week of not having had that chance,  but I don't want to play with them.   There I said it.   I feel guilty saying it, but I don't think its my role to play with them all the time.  Honestly, I believe they are better off without me as a playmate. Yes, I can tie the cape around your ne...

We've all been waiting. We've been waiting for the centre of a storm to move in on us. We murmur to each other in line ups and crosswalks, "it's going to be a big one." We appraise our readiness, we trudge along, we sit in a stillness, all the while, unhitching from our moorings.  And  we  drift.

Last year was the year of  kite .  This year has been the year of the paper airplane.  They litter the stairs, the chairs and the corners of most rooms in our house.  Some of their trajectories are short, aborted spurts, others chart across time and space into  legend and a heap of dirty socks.  There is a formula for a good paper airplane.  I don't know it.  My son doesn't know it either, but he knows it when he sees it.  We've all joined in.  We all have different versions of airplanes.

Did you know that wind makes birds move? Or is it that birds flying around makes the trees move? Something like that.

When we made a puppet play, I asked to be an evil witch.  She insisted that she didn't make witches.  I wanted to know what would make it an interesting story without some conflict.  They can't both be happy can they?   She suggested a frustrated queen instead. 

In Valentine creation mode,   I decided that some of those discarded books  would make adorable Valentines but after making a few, I stopped having the heart to actually cut into a book and put it aside for Christmas present for next year instead. (All images from "The Christmas Bunny" by William Lipkind and Nicolas Mordvinoff)

At a particularly low ebb, when our library fine woes were holding us back from borrowing books,  we stumbled towards the discard bin.  We had come all this way, on a ferry no less, and it seemed like we should leave the library with some books one way or the other.  "Let's make this trip as wholesome as possible!"  we said. We picked out some great reading material, a little shabby and a couple of pages loose or lost, but fine.  Claiming a handful of discards satiated, on some level, our need to stamp this excursion with some proof that we had been to the library and had made an attempt. I am always drawn to a bargain.  $0.50 for hard covers and $0.25 for soft covers were good prices. Also, besides getting a bargain and coming away full handed, I also felt a little like we were rescuing these books.  For whatever reason, it had been determined that these books needed to move along, but their goodness, their art, the work that they constituted...