cycling positives and negatives
One of the good things about this strange mild winter—which on the whole I deplore—is that there are still lots of cyclists out there keeping me company on the path. I do confess, though, that I find many of them humorously over-prepared for the actual conditions. Here's me in the same clothes I'm going to wear at work—inside—with a fleece coat on top, and they're wearing gore-tex parkas and neoprene balaclavas and who knows what else. And a lot of folks rocking studded tires too, which would have been awesome last year but now is kind of overkill. But it's awesome to see other folks riding in February at all, so I'll try not to make fun.
On the other hand, I recently learned that the school where I work officially discourages kids from cycling to school, which I find pretty discouraging myself. Here we have environmental education talking about what kids can do to "save the earth" and physical education telling them they need to get an hour of exercise a day... but it's too dangerous to ride a bike less than mile to school. I guess the crossing guards at both entrances are just to help the traffic flow more smoothly morning and afternoon; speaking as a professional in the field I can tell you that it can get pretty crazy with every single parent trying to get their car in there to pick up or drop off their child. If only there were some other way for kids to... oh yeah, never mind.
cultural exposure
We took a field trip with friends today, up north to the Peabody Essex Museum. On the way there Harvey was curious as to whether it was a zoo or an aquarium, and whether there would be fish there; it didn't help matters that he heard "peabody" as "PBS kids", something might mean something to Grandma. And when he asked what we what we cold expect to see there I wasn't particularly informative, having not done any advance research at all besides discovering that the outing would only cost us a total of $5, not including gas. "Um," I told him. "Boats? Paintings? Paintings of boats?"
As it turns out I wasn't too far wrong, but to that short list you can also add 19th century furniture, ancient Japanese masks, figureheads, modern glass art, old shoes, Chinese silver work, and stuffed birds. And some other things. Ah, the joys of a private collection. The museum was charmingly empty on a Thursday afternoon, so the attendants were free to follow us around and make sure that our six kids (and three occasionally over-enthusiastic adults) didn't break anything. They really didn't need to hover so; we only set off alarms twice!
Eventually we made our way to the kids space, where we could finally touch things. After a little bit of fun with the water exhibit, the older kids spent a happy half-hour (or was it even more?) with the wooded build-your-own-birds while the babies played with blocks. Salem residents get in the museum for free; we'd be there a couple times a week if we lived in town, so happy were our children without any intervention required from us (that's rare when we stay at home). All in all, a very rewarding outing.
sick again?
We had a lovely 1 week respite from illness during which time I made grand sweeping plans for eating healthier and taking time for myself and all sort of non-baby-holding things. Then last night Zion got sick again and now I can only think of surviving another day filled with snot and screaming. On the good news front, Zion took his first crawls forward today. What a proud mama I was, clapping and shouting! Now he can move forward! I feel like I missed all this with Harvey... I remember him pulling up and cruising around and then taking his first steps, but I never remember him crawling. But then, when Harvey was this age I was changing jobs and commuting two hours a day and probably if he started crawling nobody told me.
There. See how I take a perfectly lovely subject and get all complainy up on its ass? It's the reason I'm not blogging much lately. Let's regroup in the spring.
I feel the need to add something positive, so here's what Harvey said yesterday when he was playing with the outdoor grill:
"Do you want some bugs and cheese and moose and hats?"
chicken update
Many people have asked me recently, "So, how are the chickens?"
They're great! I reply. Doing fine. Don't mind the cold at all. Friendly and sociable. So much fun!
"And how are the eggs?" they ask.
Eggs? Oh. They don't lay eggs.
Zilch. Zip. Goose egg, as they say, except, you know, without the actual egg. There's a reason, it seems, that casual backyard farmers don't start chicks in August. My father has been joking that I bought the wrong kind of chickens. The non-egg-laying kind.
But still I try to be upbeat and positive. Look how much they love the snow!
snow? we bok at snow.
And how great they are around kids!
future hippy and hippy protein provider
Then this morning I went out with their usual ration of treats and found only three out of four chickens diving at the dehydrated worms. Um, where's the fourth bird? I looked under the coop... nobody there. I went around the coop to look in through the door. Uh oh. There was the forth chicken, lying in the nesting box, not moving.
"Dan!" I came yelling into the house. "I think one of the chickens is dead. I don't want to check all by myself."
Dan, though already late for work, diligently put on his raincoat and followed me outside.
"She's just lying in the nesting box - i don't know if she's breathing - I didn't want to open the lid on a dead chicken - please look for me," I pleaded rather frantically.
Dan opened the lid of the nesting boxes and shook his head with exhasperation.
"Leah, she's not dead," he said patiently. "She's sitting on eggs!"
the first fruits of those who wait
"Go on broody hen!" he called as he shooed her away. "There aint no babies in here. Go peck! Be free! Live the bachelorette lifestyle!"
And so we have our first four eggs today. Just like that. You can't tell me that isn't magic.
old farmers
Harvey likes reading books about pumpkins. Having them read to him, that is; you know what I mean. Other farming-related texts often make their way into our house as well. And I've noticed a pattern: in nearly all cases, when a child in a picture book is described as living on a farm his or her caretakers are grandparents rather than parents. Leaving aside the disturbing question of what happened to the parents (are they dead? drug dealers? financial wizards with no time for their kids?), this shows a disturbing lack of faith in the long-term prospects of American agriculture.
I'm sure there's no slight against farming intended by any of the authors; they just don't expect their readers to believe that a young couple, the sort likely to have a picture-book-protagonist-aged offspring, would willingly tie themselves to the soil for their livelihood. Not that the farmers in the stories seem to be working too hard; it's more the retired-in-the-country-and-fun-to-visit farming. True, there are some good books about farming in the olden days—our last library visit I read Harvey Jane Yolen's Harvest Home—but if you go by most of the books set in the modern day farming is clearly a dying art.
Which it may be, in mainstream culture. But we're fighting the power over here, and we need picture books to back us up and send the right message to our children! One of the rare counter-examples is Nikki McClure's To Market, To Market, which dives right into realistic descriptions of how farmers market vendors grow or make the things they bring to the market. Only there's not much plot to grab you, and the explanations are a little long for Harvey's taste. Oh, he'll listen to them—this child will listen to the dictionary for as long as you're willing to read it to him—but it's not the kind of thing that's going to excite him, either about rereading it or about living it.
So... who knows any children's-book authors?