The Rain Is Welcome Anytime

Nearly Five

Laurel is nearly five, which means a few things. She'll soon be old enough for Real School necessitating some real decisions on our part, we'll teach her to use a knife (house rule) and she is so firmly into childhood that her baby-ness is just a memory now. I don't even think about it when she climbs in my lap anymore. She's all legs and complicated questions.

But also, I've been someone's mother for five years. Five years! The transformation into motherhood was jolting at first, and then all-encompassing as I obsessed over the proper way to diaper, wean or sleep-train my way through the first years, and has now faded to a layer that sits beneath the surface...always there, but not the most important thing about me anymore. Having kids helped me to realize a part of my personality that was always there, but I didn't know I had. And now there is no separating the mother part of me from any other part.

After five years, my biggest lesson is that in having kids, you are inviting actual people to come into your life for a really long time. (Wanting a "baby" is kind of dangerous. Like wanting a kitten, it goes by really fast and they are super cute and cuddly and then you have a cat for like 15 years. Hope you like cats.)

The books make it sound like child-rearing is this series of gameboards you must conquer before moving on to the next level. There's infant sleep then potty training then tantrums. Then school. Peer pressure. Tweens and teen stuff. Apply each solution to the appropriate developmental stage and WIN!

Parenting has been more like committing to a long-term relationship before I really knew what I was getting into. Along the way you learn about each other...likes and dislikes and how to get along. How to disagree and make up. What you can share together joyfully. What you should just avoid in the spirit of family harmony. How to balance everyone's needs.

Hello, Autumn!

Suddenly, after a September filled with blue-sky days and pleasant temperatures, autumn is upon us. I took Laurel out in the bike trailer on Saturday where she had her very first experience of getting hailed on. It was windy and rainy and cold enough to chase M out of the woods, where he had planned to do a long run. M really loves to run so you know it had to be pretty unpleasant for him to cut that short. Laurel declared it the "worst bike trailer trip ever," but she can be sort of melodramatic about these sorts of things. The hail wasn't really that big and we were only biking around my parents' neighborhood. Note to self: buy her a winter coat.

I haven't blogged for a while for a lot of reasons. Maybe I'll write more about that, maybe not. All of us are fine here. Sort of cocooning for the winter. Folding into each other and slowing things down.

Last week we had a visit from my friend, Leah, and her two year old son. We took them to Ohiopyle for the day where we wandered around the Ferncliff peninsula trails and splashed in the Youghiogheny River. Hiking is very slow....basically Laurel sets our pace these days because she's too big to be carried. Four-almost-five-year-olds cannot be hurried. I love to watch my children in the woods, noticing little bugs and flowers.  Running their hands across mossy rocks, and climbing over decomposing tree branches. Everything I've ever seen and become familiar with is new again as I watch through their eyes. It was fun to take Leah to a place that is special to us. We've been friends for a decade, but spent most of that time on opposite coasts, growing our friendship through emails and letters and the shared experience of motherhood. We could have just hiked somewhere closer to my house....we do live near a 500 acre wooded park. Taking Leah there was a way to reveal something else about myself that could never be communicated another way. Plus her kid really likes to splash in water. (Unless it is a bathtub. Oddly, he is vehemently opposed to baths, but had no qualms about the river, or the water tables at the Children's Museum.)

I have a lot more to say, but running out of time. Here's what you should know in case I forget to blog for another month. (1) I quit my job and have zero regrets about that. I will not be writing about that here, but feel free to ask me in person. (2) We're planning a bike trip down the Great Allegheny Passage in a couple of weeks. Pray for no hail. It will probably be kind of cold. I welcome your suggestions for long distance biking with small children. They'll be in a trailer and it's about 300 miles total, I think. (3) Laurel is reading! Sounding words out on her own and blending sounds. Spending hours sitting on the couch paging through her magazines. So cool to see it happening before my very eyes. (4) Wassail Fest is ON for this year. I seriously will tune my piano, once we set a date. Mid-December.

The Great Milestone that is Back To School Time

Laurel's first day of school was on Wednesday and I did not take a picture. This was partly because I got a bonk on the head a couple of weeks ago and have lingering concussion symptoms, so just getting her to the school building itself on time was feeling like a pretty epic accomplishment. Even with the concussion, I did remember to pull out my phone as we approached the building but Laurel gave me a firm no. I think she was nervous.

School went fine and by Friday she happily posed for a "first day" picture. School is a funny thing. As a person with teaching experience, I ought to have a fairly good idea of what happens there, but so much of it is a mystery. Side conversations with her peers that happen out of the earshot of adults. Her perception of a disciplinary choice of her gym teacher. Why she's there in the first place. So much of the whole experience has nothing to do with the curriculum. At our parent conference last week, the teacher asked me what my goals were for Laurel for this year and I didn't really know how to answer the question. I mean, it's preK. I hope that she emerges from the year relatively unharmed and has a good time playing with a lot of kids on the playground. Read her some cool stories. Teach her to count.

On the first day, she came home delighted to be back in school. I got to make orange juice, she said, and then I got to drink it!

That seems like a pretty good thing to be doing in preK, I think.

It will be two more years before Marko is old enough for this school, but he is firmly out of "baby" territory and exerting his will as an active toddler. He mimics everything that Laurel does, so getting him to act properly is very much about getting her to do it. He can say a few words: dog, duck, Lah-lu (Laurel), and apple. He still uses the sign for more. I'm learning a little bit about using Montessori with him and he loves to help around the house. Although he doesn't talk too much, he can definitely follow 1 and 2 step directions.

Last night, I was doing the dishes and realized it was pitch dark and only 8:30. That's the other part of Back to School. It marks the coming of the autumnal equinox. Our garden phlox has just about given up blooming. The dill went to seed. Our sunflowers, which we planted very late, are now towering over the rest of the garden, with thick stalks and umbrella-like leaves. When walking home from the playground yesterday, we found a few red leaves on the ground. We've now lived in this house for nearly six years and - the longest I've spent anywhere since my childhood home, and it's interesting to note what I have grown to notice and expect from my surroundings. The sunrise drifts from one end of the dining room window to the other and back again. The gingko trees across the street will not be the first to turn, but will be the most brilliant. The grass in our front yard will slowly turn to yellow as the winter deepens. The house itself will shift, tightening up as the moisture from the air disappears when the boiler turns on. The doors may shut properly in their frames again. We will change our habits, sleeping more and earlier.

As for me, I'm taking it easy. A few weeks ago I hit my head while I was cleaning the house. It really hurt, but I put some ice on it and didn't think too much about it. Next day, I still had a headache and a few other troublesome symptoms, and was instructed to rest from pretty much everything....no computer, tv, driving, exercise. This week, I'm trying to ease back in so I can return to work.

Summer Here

Summer has been pretty great. Lots of time on the porch and swimming pools. Marko is very much on his way to Two, with daily assertions of his displeasure at the rules I impose (no, you cannot cut your cheese stick with a butcher knife), but also lots of hugs and snuggles. He finally likes to read (whew) and brings me his favorite books, then turns around and plops himself into my lap.

Laurel says at least 50 amazing things a day and I keep thinking I need to catalog them or video tape her or something. We had this conversation about hang gliding and parachuting the other day that was just not what I was expecting to talk about with my four year old. She still loves reading about animals and science. Today I had a meeting with a biologist and we talked about using microscopes and magnifying glasses with some of the kiddos I work with, and I kept thinking that Laurel would really love every single one of those lessons - looking at insect legs and your fingerprint and the stomata of leaves.

The two of them together are a tornado of destruction, though. Tumbling over each other, wrestling like puppies. Taking out every single puzzle or toy or book. Food dropped all over the place, even though we are really trying to enforce eating at the table. They yell at each other and laugh really loudly and share everything. Lollipops and books and germs. They are not afraid of new people. Marko just learned to shake hands from the Councilman Burgess, who stopped by our ice cream social. Laurel will tell you everything five minutes after you meet. At the swimming pool, she bobs and gossips with a group of moms hanging out in the far opposite corner of the kiddie pool. In the grocery store, she tells the clerk what we are having for dinner, where we went this morning and whatever embarrassing piece of information I really wish she hadn't overheard.

She says "Jeeee-sus" when she is awed or irritated. (Wonder where she got that from?)

Marko says "taco" and "backpack" and shakes his head no.

I wish we had a hundred more years of summer, but I'll be glad when fall gets here and we can tuck ourselves under covers and watch the leaves blow into our yard.

Come Read With Us

Sometimes when I have a side conversation with Amy (my collaborator on the Reading Warriors project) before training starts, where we decide how much time to dedicate to processing the murder that occurred on the playground last night, and we decide 15 minutes is good and to let the teens moderate it, and it turns out 15 minutes is a good amount of time, and then they go on to do utterly amazing planning work with more dedication and thoughtfulness than I've seen from most classroom teachers in the last ten years....well....I am simultaneously grinning from ear to ear with satisfaction and pride over this program we have built together and utterly sick with the scope of poverty, violence and hopelessness that a quarter of this city's children are growing up in.

Sorry for the run-on. And dropping that bit about the murder in there. But that's kind of what the inside of my head feels like when I'm at work. So. Many. Problems.

No choice except to deal and move on. Even when the problems are serious.

Because we've got a solution.

At the core, it is simple. Reading Warriors focus their efforts on shrinking the word gap. How do we do that? By reading and having rich conversations with kids. Teens really can do this! It starts with a book and ends with crafting a patchwork quilt out of construction paper or making smoothies or finding 6 different kinds of a maple leaves in the blocks around our program sites. They come up with amazing ideas when I can restrain myself and stop meddling in their lesson planning.

During the next couple of weeks, you can support our work and it's easy.

On Wednesday July 23 or Thursday July 31 you can join us. If you are local, come to the events in the Hill or East Liberty. Bring a book, or use one of ours and just sit and read for a minute. You can bring a kid or an office-mate. Bring your mom. Bring your dog. Bring your goldfish. You'll probably hear some P-O-W-E-R, or see some of their trademarked "animation reading" (seriously, they made it up) and it's just really fun. If you can't join us in person, read wherever you are, take a selfie and post it on FB or Instagram with #ReadingWarriors. Buy a book for a kid you know or send a donation to your local library. If you see a Reading Warrior out and about, ask them about their work. Make sure the kids you know read 100 books this summer (it's only 2-3 a day). Or you can do a hundred chapters, if they are a bit older.

Summer on the Porch

My neighbor Marlene joins us for
lemonade and story time.

We live on a super busy corner, and therefore do not experience the oasis of peace and quiet that I formerly associated with porch swings and pitchers of lemonade. No matter, the porch is a great place to gather a few neighbors, drink lemonade, read, paint, splash in the kiddy pool, and tend our little garden. The kids help with weeding and watering. M recently started a new job and my job is super busy in the summer, so we don't really have any big vacation plans. We take the kids to the city pool, M plays in a softball league once a week, and we've been on a couple of short camping trips in the Laurel Highlands.

When we started writing this blog, M and I didn't even really have a home. We were staying with relatives in between various road trips and backpacking adventures. I was thinking about how much online connectivity we have these days, compared to 2006. Back then we really had to hunt for a public library to send email or  upload photos! We didn't even carry a cell phone with us on the AT...just used pay phones. I don't even know if you can rely on that anymore as an option. You never knew where we would pop up next because a few days or a week would go by in between phone calls or blog posts. Thus the name of the blog. It felt exciting and free to spend a lot of days out of reach from everyone I knew.

Now you pretty much know where to find us. Happy hour after work is on the porch. Less beer, more iced rooibos tea. We carefully watch our phlox as they come into bloom and try to keep the lemon balm from taking over the entire yard. Laurel is a creative artist, always doing something new with the way she applies and layers paint. Marko just likes to dump things into and out of buckets....whether it's dirt or water or a collection of small toys. He's very busy and serious about it. He makes it look like work, but work he enjoys.

In a couple of weeks, we're going to crack open a few cartons of ice cream and make sundaes for anyone who walks by, for National Night Out. I'll drag every chair I own out to the little patch of grass in my front yard, and hopefully we'll meet some new neighbors. It's Laurel's favorite event of the entire year, and she's been inviting everyone she runs into.

Find Your Place and Watch It Grow

Sometimes Marko pulls out our laminated map of the United States where it sits, rolled up, tucked in between the refrigerator and the wall. We unroll it on the living room floor and he walks back and forth over it. Laurel traces the lines with her finger, finding "Big Texas" and Chicago and Key West. M and I took our first big road trip when we were in in college, a month long loop following Route 66 for part of the way. We carried little glass vials with us and filled them with sand and water along the way. They sit in our attic, packed away, their labels have been rubbed off so they are vaguely mysterious, although you cannot mistake the silty Mississippi River water for the red dust of Kansas. As a family, we daydream often about our next road trip.

But there are plenty of adventures to be had close to home. When Laurel was Marko's age, we walked her to and from daycare and thus had built-in outdoor exploration time every day. The same 3/4 mile long journey, watching the trees and flowers move through seasonal cycles. Watching the shadows inch their way further and further across the park and then retreating again as winter approaches. 

Marko spends way more time in the car, way more time on my back or on M's shoulders. We don't make time for 2 hours of walking a toddler to and from daycare every day. If you ask Laurel what she wants to do, she will say watch tv. But once you get her outside, she's very comfortable, curious and observant. I want to be able to give Marko the same gift of time. No lesson plans or nature hike. Just traveling from place to place on foot, at one's own comfortable pace.

And then we got a hamster....

We got a hamster. His name is Jojo and he came from our babysitter, Jessie, who also provided a complete and luxurious hamster habitat and a starter supply of bedding and food. Marko calls him "Ball" and is not allowed to touch him. Laurel is supposed to be in charge of taking care of him, but let's be real....I'm the one who is going to be dumping soiled wood shavings. She did a good job of changing the water today, though. Jojo got off to sort of a rough start when he bit Laurel last night. To be fair, she did put her finger directly between his sharp rodent teeth. There was blood, and tears. But the transgression was forgotten the next morning when the kids woke up; the first thing they wanted to do was check on Jojo. They desperately wanted to feed him again but it wasn't time. They were disappointed that he was sleeping and Laurel cried when I said that he was nocturnal. The thing I love most is seeing them next to each other, peering into the cage.

Happy Siblings Day, to my dear siblings. Pete and Danna, I can only hope that my kids have as much fun together as we did growing up. Love you both so much.

Game Changers

Today while I was at work I had a conversation with a second grade child about honey. She had an old faded copy of a Winnie the Pooh book. She actually looked pretty engrossed in it when I walked by; she was definitely reading the words. I asked her if she liked Winnie the Pooh. "He's kind of a dope," I said, "Always getting stuck in those honey pots." She smiled and then said, "What's honey?"

Later, M and I lay in bed with Laurel, paging through her First Human Body Encyclopedia and looking for the pages on blood. When we got to the part about where blood cells are produced - in the bone marrow - she told us about tasmanian devils and how they eat marrow. When we looked at the magnified photo of the white blood cell, she said, "Reeve has lots of those because he is sick right now."

I'm the sort of girl who wears an "I love books" t-shirt to work, so yes, my kids read a lot. But it's not just about the reading. Bring a wide variety of reading materials and have rich discussions to build comprehension and vocabulary, that's what I tell my Reading Warriors. Also known as "Read stuff your kids are interested in and talk about it." Laurel learned the thing about the tasmanian devils from Wild Kratts, so sometimes "reading" is replaced by "watch a video." Whatever, it's the interaction that matters.

Do you know how hard it is to describe honey to a child who eats all of her meals in the school cafeteria and has never seen a bee hive?

So much word gap, so little time. One of the reasons I am so devoted to teaching teens about reading has nothing to do with the elementary kids they are tutoring now. I want them to understand the extent and complexity of the word gap and make sure they have babies that know what white blood cells are when they are four.