Out and About

"I am keeping my daughter home from school today"

I am keeping my daughter home
from school today.
She has fallen behind in some subjects
and they need special attention,
like birdwatching
and blowing on the dust bunnies
'til they scamper across the floor
and deciding once and for all whether
the crack on the ceiling is a sleeping dragon
or a boat to sail away in.

Later on
with furrowed brows
we will conference over cups of hot chocolate
our fingers curled
around the smooth ceramic surface,
both seeking and protecting its warmth.
Earnestly we will say to each other
that it is all very well
to excel in math and speling,
but if you cannot tell the difference
between a sparrow and a chickadee
then you're headed for some trouble in life.

Tomorrow
I think she can go back
when she is caught up,
when I am sure that she knows
how to catch the icy points
of the year's first snowflake
on her tongue.

Jenny Schmitt

-=-=-=-=-

I received the most recent issue of Mothering yesterday and, since it's not the pregnancy or breastfeeding issue (which still makes me a little defensive and depressed), I was inspired by many of the articles. My favorites were on spending time outdoors with children, in either Swiss and German outdoor kindergartens or on suburban hikes here Stateside.

I don't really like being outdoors much, definitely not if we're far from the trappings of civilization (namely good flush toilets). And I'm not a good walker, even though philosophically I would love to be like a long-walking Austenian heroine. I do enjoy a good picturesque view, and I use that word in its strict art-historical sense of looking like a picture, mainly, for me, Poussin, Constable, and Cole and the rest of the Hudson River School (oh, my brain for names has diminished. I like that Danish or Scandinavian early 19th-century artist who does all the snowy woods with the trees and churches.) I like the trappings of history in my landscape; a good ruin, or at least something ethnographic, really improve a landscape for me. This being New England, I do get quite a view beautiful, picturesque views. But romping through the Acadia National Park, as my mom recently suggested? I'm not so sure.

My parents are outdoorsy people, now even more than when I was a child--hiking, fishing, hunting (now taking pictures), bird watching, you name it, they like it. They didn't force me to be outdoors and I remember happily playing outside in the backyard for hours as a kid. And I loved Girl Scout camping. But beyond those rather tame environments, I'm not as happy. Mama is even less happy outside, though she has even more grand aspirations of hiking the Appalachian Trail and being more outdoorsy. And she doesn't even like walking in the grass in our backyard in shoes!

So, encouraging a love of the outdoors in the kiddos is an uphill battle here, for it comes to neither of us naturally or easily. But, as both magazine articles attest, nature is a great environment for children--the healthy air, the lack of dominating media and thus a chance to utilize innate creativity, familiarity with the natural world which will lead to a desire to learn about it and protect it. I can't imagine a kindergarten that goes outside, that is outside, with no building, all day, regardless of the weather. In Germany. It's warmer here, I think, but I still can't imagine it. Our preschool takes the kids out everyday as long as it's not raining and is over 20F. 20F? Where I grew up, there wasn't school if it were 20F because no one knew how to drive in the ice! It makes me shiver just imagining it, but I'm glad someone will be taking them outside because I don't think it would be me! And that's just 30 minutes. I can't imagine a whole day--I would hate it (now; I might have liked it some as a youngster).

But I can imagine hiking around our town, around the neighborhood, to nearby stores, in the parks, though not for the marathon two and three hours that the author in the article does. We get out some days, but not most, definitely not all. It just doesn't occur to me. And sometimes, only one of them is game. That was one challenge the hiking author didn't have, two kids to take for a walk (later she had one napping in the stroller). And what about potties? We're still only recently potty-trained. I think we'll start small, maybe even in our own yard everyday. My goal would be to make it such an adventure and so comfortable that they would want to go and then not worry about, you know, "going." It will be a good experience for all of us, I think. And maybe, just maybe, one of these days, we'll be ready to hike the Appalachian Trail.

If Mama is ready too . . . .

We just have to figure out the differences between a sparrow and a chickadee (Pop and Gommie, do you know?)