Six Months and Some

I just saved 4 grand. No need
to go to Disney. This Cookie
was celebrity enough.

Marko is 6 months old, creeping up on 7 months. Laurel is "not just 3, I'm 3 and a half," as she told one of our neighbors at the Ice Cream Social the other night. I've been writing a lot about my work, but there are many hours in the day spent cuddling, nursing, playing, painting, running through the park, and all the other good stuff of summer.

We just got home from an impromptu and very late dinner out at Eat n Park. You would have thought we took Laurel to Disney, that was how excited she was. They have a big Smiley Cookie statue in the lobby and she made me take her picture with it. She carefully considered her options when ordering and even requested a substitution (grapes instead of mixed fruit). She watched our server closely and declared that someday she would work there. Marko smiled and cooed at all the other customers until they smiled back, and ate a whole tube-packet of spinach-pea-pear baby food. (Did you know commercial baby food now comes in these squeezy tubes?)

Some Marks.

M and I, in an attempt to meet new people and have a little non-parenting adult fun, joined a PSL softball league this summer. Our intention was to make it sort of a date night, but we could never secure a sitter and ended up dragging the kids along to all the games and then tag teaming - one on the field, one watching the kids. The team is awesome...reminiscent of the Sons of Pitches, but little kids sort of ruin the vibe of beer league softball, or at least it was no fun to drive out to Mt. Oliver with the Liberty Tunnels being closed.

I just found out school starts for Laurel in less than 3 weeks. She's going to a Montessori pre-K, one of the magnet schools in our public school district. She is definitely ready....yesterday we ran into the kids from her old daycare at the playground and she literally screamed with delight and then ran around in circles holding hands with her two best friends. I learned a valuable lesson this summer. Playdates are not enough for Laurel. She needs the chaos of a large group of children. I hate large groups of people and would happily sit at home and work from my office. I love the internet for letting me do that. Mark is sort of the same way. It's weird getting to know your kid. I definitely believe in the power of nurture, but it's become clear to me these last few years that your children arrive with their own personalities and preferences. I supposed you can mold some of these things by the environment in which you raise them, but there's a limit. Your nurturing at its best will simply help their personalities develop fully....it won't make them into different people.

Our intention was originally to homeschool Laurel. I won't say that it's off the table permanently, but it's clear to us that she has a need and a desire to learn in a large group.

Where will we find Marko on this spectrum? (And he's turned from Mark O to Marko this summer.) He's much more chill and laid back than Laurel, although I think he's learned to cry to get attention; his 6 month old cry sounds a lot like Laurel's screamy 3 1/2 year old cry. He does this thing where he stares at new people for a few seconds, then smiles and buries his face in my shoulder. Gets 'em every time. He's a total flirt, and he certainly didn't get those skills from us!

He learned to scoot around in an army crawl and nothing is off limits. If I put him in his bouncy seat without strapping him in, he turns over and carefully swings his legs over the side, as if ready to get down and run around. He can't stand up, so this would end poorly if we weren't spotting him. He also thinks it's really funny to roll right off the bed. Again, obviously we catch him, but he laughs every time.

He went from gagging every time I put a spoon near his mouth to hungrily downing 3 or 4 jars of baby food a day. His favorite is green beans and he makes an "aaahhh" sound when he wants more. He always seemed like a tiny baby, but suddenly he has fat baby legs and started sprouting some hair and I realized that this time is fleeting. Next summer, he'll have blonde hair to match Laurel's and I'll be chasing around two kids at the spray park.

So, that's life around here lately.

What I did over summer break....

Remember when I said I was going to scale back this summer? Hang out with my kids. Maybe paint a little. Clean the attic. Hang out at the pool.

Yeah, didn't happen like that.

A few weeks into June, my boss approached me and said he had some money for a reading camp. He's an idea guy. A Big Idea guy, and the kind of person who never has to deal with the details so it doesn't even seem to occur to him when things might be really, really hard to put together. The idea was to connect high school kids with elementary kids and read. Simple at the core, and I'm happy to say we kept it that way. Complicated in the execution, what with coordinating 30 teenagers at 4 sites with 80 kids and 500 books.

We ordered bean bag chairs and books, a journal for every kid and boxes and boxes of index cards. We read and read and read and read some more and then made sight word memory games with the index cards. We went to the library and at first got kicked out and then met the magical Ms. Sheila. The kids made puppets and put on plays and held a spelling bee. Last Tuesday, we gathered on the steps of the church and read in front of the whole neighborhood. But mostly they just read, paired off in groups of two or three. They reread their favorite books and badgered us to check out new ones from the library on our cards. They had quiet conversations of which I'll never know the content.

Hopefully we stopped the "summer slide" for them, and I'm gathering data right now to prove that, but the real beauty comes in ways that are impossible to track. We carved out a quiet space for these kids so they could simply relax and share stories. We gave them the opportunity to fall in love with words without the pressure of having to sound them out in front of a classroom full of kids who can be cruel to those who are a little slower. We let them hate books and choose another one.

It was freakin' magical.

My partner in crime for this project was a woman I taught with at Propel McKeesport, back before we had children. There were many times during this summer when I apologized for dragging her into this. (They are teens. There was occasional chaos and attitude.) She always dismissed it and reminded me of the magic. Reminded me that we were privileged to be in a position to watch this happen.

"Reading is Power,"read one sign we held up at our Public Display of Reading.

I really think there's something to that.

Happy (whoa) 10th, M!

August 2, 2003

It's been a decade since M & K officially tied the knot. And to go way, way back, we started dating 17 years ago on August 4. 

It was the nineties, yo. We were wearing flannel back then. I still had a Toad the Wet Sprocket tape in my cassette player. I still had a cassette player. Weird.

This summer, I've been working with high school students and it blows me away to think that I was once like them. Naive and rebellious. And it was under those conditions that a spark ignited this relationship and here we are.....17 years later.

I won't lie, sustaining a relationship for this long is hard. I change, he changes. The world changes. It used to be the two of us, and now our family is four and sometimes it's hard just to find each other at the end of a long day. 

But I can't imagine another person I'd rather walk this path with, M. Happy Anniversary. To many more.

Camping. With kids. 10 Lessons.

You can do it. But it's not pretty.

So, it turns out you can go on a week long camping trip with your family of four in a subcompact car. After a brief stop in Saint Marys to visit family, we headed out to Poe Valley State Park. It was raining as we headed down the 10 miles of desolate forest service road into the park. Our cell phones were soon out of range. (This was perhaps the greatest benefit of this pretty little park as it enabled us to take a true break from work.)

Camping with young kids alternates between being the most awesome thing you'll ever do and pure wretchedness. One minute your 3 year old is correctly identifying a bald eagle landing in a tree 50 feet away and you're like, yeah, I am the best parent ever, giving my kid all these formative experiences in the natural world.

Happy kid. Who needs the ocean
when you have a CCC lake?

Twenty minutes later, there's a poopsplosion at the same time somebody falls in a mud puddle and you realize you did not pack enough dinners for the entire week and it is a good hour to the nearest town. You desperately want to be at an all-inclusive Sandals resort with childcare. Or at least some place with a television.

But then it gets better. (And then worse. And then better again.)

Poe Valley is awesome for both tenting and RVs. Dogs are allowed at a select number of sites. They have a nice beach, flush toilets and hot showers. Once you get there, everything is walkable. It's extremely clean and well taken care of...all of the buildings are pretty new. Tent sites have packed gravel areas for you to set up your tent on, which turned out to be awesome in the rain. It's not very big compared to other state parks we've been to, and there were maybe 8 other families there for most of the week (it fills up on the weekends). All for the low, low price of $21 a night!

Marko suddenly became intent on
eating everything we did.

Generally speaking, I would call it a success. Here are a few of my tips for camping with little ones without going bonkers.

1. I normally wouldn't advocate for this, but bring paper plates and bowls. If you feel guilty about this like I do, just burn them and pretend like it never happened.
2. Keep the food simple. We even made a dozen PB&J's in advance, and while we got a little sick of them after a few days, it was so nice to just pull something out when the munchies hit...which with 3 year olds is only at THE most inconvenient times.
3. Buy a cooler with a drain. For the love of god, why do they even manufacture coolers without this feature?
4. Bring a bike or a scooter if possible. We borrowed a little scooter for Laurel to use and she loved hanging out with the big kids, just scooting back and forth in the campground loop.
5. Where do hipsters/yuppies/urbanites camp? We were definitely the only people who brought a quinoa salad made with our farm-share potatoes. Don't start any conversations about fuel efficient vehicles or Barack Obama. Not that we do this ever, but I'm just warning you.

There's really nothing better
than watching Laurel run
through the woods.

6. Leave the portable DVD player at home. Same with video games and iPOds and whatever other electronic crap normally entertains your children. Note: this will make the trip painful and at times unbearable. However, after a few days, I noticed Laurel was more tolerant of being quiet and observing things. She spent about 20 minutes watching a grasshopper while we waited for M to finish a trail run.
7. Each morning we sat around the fire and discussed what we wanted to do. Each person gets one pick a day. That seemed to just about fill up our day.
8. As part of your vacation budget, you may want to include a professional cleaning of your car. Our car smells like feet, stale Cheddar Bunnies and campfire smoke.
9. Invest in some field guides. We have some of these, and they are very useful.
10. Relax. The kids were going to throw a temper tantrum at some point at home anyway, right? So swallow your pride when it happens in front of other campers and you can always lock them in the car if they are too loud.

Heat Wave

It's so hot we don't bother to dress the baby at all.  We sip ice water with cucumber slices in it and position ourselves in front of the fans. In the heat of the day, we retreat to the bedoom and watch tv shows with the blinds closed. Laurel splashes in a bucket of water on the front porch. She squeezes water out of a sponge all over her chalk drawings and watches the colors run together. Every summer, I think, screw this. Find that quote for the central air conditioning. Or better yet, let's move north. But there is something very satisfying about living with the weather like this. I can't forget that it's July. I like being able to orient myself upon waking. Without opening my eyes, the humidity, the hum of the cicadas reminds me of where I am.

When I sponge off Marko while we watch traffic from our porch swing, I can remember Laurel's first summer and holding her hot little body in just a diaper. A heat wave. A visit from Leah. A hike in the woods with my mom friends and their sons.

What is the real story in the Trayvon Martin case?

After following the trial of George Zimmerman, I was not surprised at the verdict. Saddened, but not surprised. There are so many layers to this story.

There is the story about keeping our neighborhoods safe. It's frustrating to call 911 a hundred times and never see a police officer respond to your complaint. It's annoying when you do get a chance to talk to them after they follow up on a call and they are rude or dismissive. I cannot excuse Zimmerman for so incredibly overstepping the bounds of a neighborhood block watch, but I can understand what fueled his rage.

There is also the story of gun control. If there wasn't a gun involved maybe both parties would still be alive so that we could hear each side. The prevalence of guns makes it way too easy for something permanent to happen. Nobody saw exactly what happened and only the person left standing got to tell his side of the story.

And then there is the story of race.

Type, type, type. Delete, delete, delete.

It's hard for me to even acknowledge race in a blog post.

Last week, one of my high school kids read a book about Ruby Bridges and had a little conversation with the elementary kids about this very brave thing that Ruby did and how schools used to be "just for Blacks" or "just for Whites."

Used to be. Ahem. Well, I mean, technically. Errr. Ok, kids, so the school you go to is all Black. And your neighborhood is all Black. Your church. The busline you ride. Heck, there are two grocery stores near my house - literally across the street from each other - that are segregated. Should we talk about that?

Remember that Cheerios commercial with the interracial couple that got the racist internet trolls all fired up? Well somebody showed it to some kids and videotaped their reactions and we can all feel good because the kids think racism is stupid and probably once they grow up and all the racists die, we'll be all good. Finally. We have a non-white president. Things are getting better, right?



I want this to be the narrative. We all want this to be the narrative. We're all the same on the inside. It shouldn't really matter. Etcetera.

I am so, so White. And never it is more clear to me than when I go to work in Black communities. Stereotypes come from somewhere, you know. Some of it's sort of funny in how true it ends up being. Mayonaise. Dominoes pizza. Hiking. Microbreweries. Ironing your jeans. Super white sneakers. Fried chicken. Pottery Barn. You know which is black and which is white, don't you?

How I punish my children. What my friends' children call me. What we watch on tv. Funerals. Baby clothes.

Some silly differences, and some that run a little deeper, but these aren't the kinds of things that will keep you from being friends from someone, keep you from respecting someone. These are the kinds of things that you laugh about when you get to know each other.

But when you spend a lot of time crossing the lines that are so clearly divided in this city, you won't be able to ignore the Trayvon Martin differences. Who is allowed to walk somewhere late at night without drawing suspicion. What it's like to just try and live your life without accidentally crossing the path of both gangbangers and George Zimmermans. What you are allowed to do to protect yourself, depending on the status society has determined you deserve.

The kinds of heart-to-heart talks I'll have with my blonde-haired, blue-eyed son, versus the talks my Black friends will have with their sons.

It may be better than grown people swearing and spitting at six year old Ruby Bridges. But it's not good enough. Not by a long shot.

This one time at reading camp....

“Some say they get lost in books, but I find myself, again and again, in the pages of a good book. Humanly speaking, there is no greater teacher, no greater therapist, no greater healer of the soul, than a well-stocked library.” 
― L.R. Knost

A few weeks ago I got an opportunity to run a reading camp this summer. It is not exactly the best time in my life to plunge into sudden full-time employment by launching a completely new initiative that involves hundreds of people and four locations, but, well...it's reading. I couldn't resist.

We hired 40 high school students and sent them out to 4 summer camps across the East End. We call them Reading Warriors, and our aim is to match them one on one with elementary kids and collectively log a million minutes reading. For many years I have believed - and in fact, have become increasingly more convinced over time - that time spent reading for pleasure, outside of the obligations of school or work, could solve most problems. I believe this because of some research like this or this or this, but also because I have personally witnessed the transformation of children who learn to call themselves "readers" and act like "readers" and subsequently change the trajectory of their academic careers. I've seen it happen over and over again in my tutoring business and in the schools where I've taught. I consider teaching reading to be my superpower, and although my background in linguistics and reading education is certainly helpful to correct any number of reading disabilities, the super part of the power comes from believing that reading more makes you a better reader. And being a better reader unlocks opportunities for self-growth, for connecting with others, and empowerment.

I couldn't pass up this opportunity because when the project was pitched it was just about reading. No Common Core. No cross curricular STEM connection. Just books and kids.

Turns out, it's kind of hard to run a program like this. To craft it the right way, and get buy-in and order the right kinds of books. To get it all organized and rolled out in a week and a half and keep things going while dashing to your car to pump three times a day and managing the day-to-day drama of inner-city teenagers.

It doesn't look like what I thought it would look like.

I still believe in it, though, in the power of sharing print, in stories reread while lounging on bean bags. In visits to the library. In teenagers carrying around tattered copies of Othello. In children squealing with delight as someone reads Click Clack Moo, Cows That Type to them.

Today a kid asked me who my Reading Warrior was, when I was a kid. As if Reading Warriors weren't something that we just invented a few weeks ago. I had almost forgotten that, because I have invested so much faith in them, in their power. I wonder if the burden is too great, or if they will rise beyond my expectations. Two weeks in and the honeymoon is over, but we still have 4 weeks to go.

Happy 17 years, M

We ran into each other at a community park, introduced by mutual friends, during the July 4th celebration. I asked my dad for special permission to go watch the fireworks with my friends and go to Eat n Park afterward. I have no doubt that had my mother been there that night, I would not have been allowed to go. M still has the little slip of paper placemat with my phone number written on it in red crayon.

Happenstance was our foundation, and became a pattern over the years. How we met new friends and made decisions. Our hearts were open to the possibility of each other all those years ago. We didn't know where it would lead us or if it would be good. I can see that it was simply in our nature to trust in possibility. We found each other because of an equally matched desire to follow unknown paths. To say yes to things without really knowing if we'll be successful at them.

After 17 years, we're still saying yes. To each other and to whatever the world throws our way. Much love to you, M, on one of the  many anniversaries we've accumulated.

Rosie the Cat

Rosie, circa 2004. She says, "Phoenix?
Really, guys?"

I'm surprised by how much I cry.

First, when I ran back into the house - the kids all loaded in carseats already - to get lawn chairs from the basement. I saw her from the stairs, lying there on the floor, in a position unusual for her. I cried because I wasn't expecting it, not at that moment anyway, and because I don't want to have to deal with it. And then, later, when M wrapped her in a sheet and tucked her in a box. We went to the concert anyway, Laurel crying the whole way because it took too long and she has "nothing to do" and Mark O fussing because he hates riding in the car when he can't see my face. Tears streamed down my face quietly, until I started laughing after Laurel shouted, "Oh no! We are all crying! What will we do?"

I never even wanted a cat. M convinced me, the year we got our first apartment together. She came to us through one of his work friends. She was a neurotic creature, who didn't like to live with other pets. She had trouble grooming her long hair, and a passive-aggressive way of shitting on the floor when she disapproved of something. When he brought her home, she crawled under the claw-foot tub and stayed there all day. That night, she came scratching at our bedroom door and mewed until we let her in. She curled up at the foot of our bed and slept like that for the next 8 or 9 years.

She was fairly tolerant of our cross country moves and long term house guests and roommates. Late nights and wild parties. We used to have her shaved into the "cub cut" during the summer. She would eventually be grateful to be free of her long hair in the hot weather, but on the first day, she always looked naked and self-conscious. She had an extremely sarcastic and judgmental glance. But she also rubbed up against my ankles while I did the dishes, and kept me company whenever M was away. Her purr sounded almost like a chirp when she was especially satisfied.

When we moved to our current house and had kids, she was already very gray, and not as limber. She used to leap effortlessly up to the window sills or the back of the couch. She could still manage it to the end - even this past week, I saw her get up on the dining room window sill to look at a squirrel running back and forth across our garage roof. But she looked arthritic and unbalanced doing it.

Rosie says, "What is that thing and why
 is it so loud?"

Five years ago she started having kidney problems. The vet tried to give her this fancy, scientifically-prepared food, but she would only eat dry Purina kibble. Hairball Formula. Who knows what's in that crap, but I'm surprised she survived a decade and a half on it. Anytime we would bring home another brand it would sit uneaten in her dish for days.

Since Laurel started walking, Rosie pretty much moved into the basement. She would only come up when Laurel was at daycare, or late at night. However, recently, Laurel started visiting her in the basement, gently stroking her ears and bringing her scoops of cat food. Laurel learned to mimic Rosie's purring noises, but even after they started getting along, she would tell everyone she met, "We have an old cat. She is grumpy."

I'm surprised at how universal death is, for all living creatures. The way the spirit of a person or an animal leaves the body, and how profound that feeling is when you look at the body, at what is left. She was so decidedly gone. I wonder where that energy goes - all the subtle gestures that make up one's personality.

I'm not a cat person, not even a pet person, really. But Rosie was a trusty companion for 12 years and we'll miss her a lot.

Happy Father's Day

There are a lot of dance parties when M is around. I join in, but they are definitely instigated by M, or if Laurel suggests them, he always has the perfect song to put on right away.

Me? Not so much. I join in, but they aren't my thing. I don't make them happen the way M does. When he came back from Austin last week, there was a joyous living room reunion with a lot of twirling, spinning and leaping.

One of the benefits of having two parents is that you balance each other out. You each have your "things." Laurel likes to go out for pancakes with M. He takes her to have her haircut. They listen to Wire and Patti Smith. He taught her how to knead dough. They build giant castles out of wooden blocks together.

When Mark O was a newborn, he would turn his head the second he heard M's voice. Now he loves it when M rubs his head. I look forward to seeing what special rituals they develop together.

I have this memory of walking along a creek with my dad and brother and sister. It must have been summer, because we were school-aged - Danna and I at least. My brother's hat fell into the creek and I can remember my dad chasing it as it washed downstream. It was hilarious to all of us, and he never seemed to get mad about stuff like that. We could get muddy without getting in trouble. Everything was an adventure. When I think of that scene - one tiny snapshot out of decades of memories, it kind of sums up how I think about my dad. And when I look towards the future, I can see Laurel and Mark O following M along a creek bed in exactly the same way.

Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there!