Of This and That

Of Ice Cream and Kids' Books
Yesterday, we had the delightful opportunity to go to a presentation by children's authors Tui Sutherland (Wings of Fire series, Menagerie series, etc.) and Christine Taylor-Butler (numerous non-fiction and Lost Tribes series.)  The kids knew the former author very well from several of their favorite books--earlier, they'd both agreed that they liked her dragon stories more than Harry Potter!  We hadn't knowingly read any of the latter author's works (though we saw copies of a book on Pluto that I know we had) but were interested in her new series that involves lots of codes.

Sutherland intrigued the kids with stories on how she became an author (via publishing), how she works (late at night), and how she fleshes out an idea (sometimes with a character first, sometimes with the idea of a world, like Wings of Fire--draw a map, she advised!)  She showed lots of cover art, including book 8 in the dragon series, and generally encouraged the children's creativity.

Taylor-Butler, who is an MIT-trained engineer, also always wanted to be a writer but hadn't thought it was a paying "real" job until she was an adult.  She wrote close to 75 non-fiction books, often on contract with Scholastic, looking for what interested her in such subjects as American History, meteorology, etc.  Only later did someone ask her to turn a short children's book about a boy who thought his mother was an alien from Venus into a novel.  And now she's written a novel about codes, Lost Tribes.  She talked about existing codes--and kid's pages on the FBI, NSA, and CIA websties--and did a few scientific experiments (magnets and money, paper clips on water.)  She says she always bases science fiction on real science.  Our kids were fascinated.  Mama and I liked her, too, as she repeatedly said what a nerd she was . . . and proudly!!


We stood in short lines to meet both authors and take pictures, buying copies of Lost Tribes for the kids.  I teased Mama that she might need her own copy!

 Afterwards, we went to our favorite farm ice cream stand--we hadn't been in such a long time!  And it was as good as we remembered.  I couldn't decide and so got strawberry AND peaches & cream, sharing it all around.  Mama got Jersey cow (coffee ice cream with chocolate and caramel chunks); Bud, purple cow (raspberry ice cream and chocolate chunks); Sis, caramel swirl.  Delicious!!  They're planning all the flavors we can make this summer.

Of Slushies and Straight Swords
Bud had a local kung fu competition today, this time a mixed martial arts contest between teams at one of the local amusement parks.  Most of the other groups were karate--Bud said that there was a lot of breaking boards!--and some very young kids doing simple forms.  He did both his fist and straight sword forms as part of the large team performance.  And they came in second!  They were all very pleased.  Plus, there were slushies and fried dough and ice cream! And a rollercoaster that almost did Mama in.  A fun day out.  With a team trophy for langiappe.

Of Cake and Crochet
At home, Sis and I had our own fun today.  We started off with a trip to the craft store for supplies--my first drive out to the mall since my surgery (my longest drive yet!!)--and then picked up pasta at Sis's favorite Italian place (chicken fettucine alfredo for her, "pink" pasta with prosciutto for me.)  We watched a lot of "Doctor Who" and petted the cats.  Midday, we made Tex-Mex Chocolate sheet cake, which we shared with our neighbor who had been so kind to give us brisket yesterday (he's into smoking brisket these days--and we are the happy recipients of his experiments.  His sauce was better yesterday!)  Sis took some to his family and also to our friend Miss K, the teacher.   We watched more tv, with me finishing two un-edged crocheted afghans and Sis completing a thread art project.  Later, Sis told Mama that we had an awesome day!  Yay!


Of Pie and Puzzles
Well, not really pie but close . . . . Last week, we had a Cobbler-Off.  We made two kinds of cobbler:  pie-crust-topped mixed berry, based on my aunt's Dewberry Cobbler recipe, and a skillet peach cobbler from the Homesick Texan cookbook, with its more cake-like top.  Why?  One each for Bud and Sis!  And I was trying out the different types of crust.  I wasn't completely pleased with the peach, not fluffy or cakey enough.  I think I might still like the topping of Swedish Apple Pie best for cobbler.  Something worth playing with this summer.

Meanwhile, we started a new puzzle.  Mama is on a puzzle kick because she's been doing them with her team at work.  And so we've done a few here, including this multi-colored cupcake one which was challenging.  Mama and I like to do the border; Bud and Sis like to do the section they like the best, with or without the frame--this time they'd choose a color.  But some of the colors didn't vary enough to make it easy to put together.  But we like a challenging puzzle, made more so by the cats that kept sitting on them.  We finished it tonight, after a slow try-each-piece-in-each-spot approach for the last, most difficult cupcake.  I wonder what we'll do next?



Of NYCats and Connecticats

There has been some progress on the cat front.  The basement boys, Mojo and Mr. P, are definitely more comfortable, in fact even prefer, being on the first floor with us.  P sits in the cat tree near the front window, next to where I am on the couch (hence all the photos of him--that and he's easier to photograph than a black cat.  He sits there so much that the cover is beginning to fray--it's an old cat tree--Sis and I bought new furry fabric today); Mojo likes being on the couch, also wandering around (he's even been climbing the refrigerator and kitchen cabinets.)  And even when Hermione approaches, they either hiss or just ignore her.  It's rare that they race straight downstairs.  In fact, at least once, we put our "old" cats in the basement while we let the "new" cats have the top two floors.  Mr. P even slept with us!  But Mama says that in the morning, Albus and Hermione were crying, "You accidentally locked the wrong cats in the basement!"  They'd even pulled part of the frame of the small cat door off.  They were all so exhausted afterwards, that the four cats went to their usual places and slept all day.  Last night, we didn't even separate anyone.   They all lived.  And came together again today without much hissing.  It's nice.  Or at least as nice as it has been so far.  (We're still aiming for no hissing.)

The Cubists

Rubik's Cube, that is.

Mama, Sis, and Bud have the Rubik's bug.  Mama had picked up two cubes for the kids, thinking they'd like them.  Each can get one colored side, I think.

And then Mama got her hands on one of them and spent the evening working on it, following the directions.

Yep, directions.  Those little colorful cubes come with instructions now for how to best work the puzzle. When the Rubik's Cube first came out in 1980, I was in 5th grade and those were the most popular toys with my friends.  I even had one but never got past one color.  A few of the boys in my class did and we were all impressed.  Especially because they didn't have directions.

Still, I was impressed when Mama did it, as were the kids.  But Sis put the neat cube on her desk and probably won't mess up the colors again.  Bud is still working on his.

Word Hungry

Scrabble is our new family-favorite game.  We started with Scrabble Junior, with word suggestions on the side and on the board but now we play on a regular adult board without any vocabulary aid.  And the kids are doing really well!  We don't keep score, though, to keep down the competition and rivalry.

Continuing this wordplay, Mama has been making word scrambles for the kids' lunchboxes using their favorite books, movies, and toys (on the days I don't send jokes or poems).  Scrambles like "ehx ugsb" and "oornd" and "eneuq niolcar."  The kids love it.  Their favorite?  "ygfrofrind" (see below for answers)

Now, Mama is totally hooked on crossword puzzles, having discovered an iPad app (she uses Across Lite to find NYTimes archived puzzles).  She even had Sis helping her with clues today!  It's been fun doing the puzzles together, during quiet moments--and we get a good laugh over clues we can't decipher and excited when we figure out a trick (like today's puzzle that had a My Fair Lady theme and dropped the "h"s from  several words).  We're just learning the various crossword peculiarities.

Though I'm sure it's been there from the beginning (the beginning of Mama's and my relationship, even, and going back before that to our own academic-focused childhoods), it's more clear as the kids grow older that we're a word-based, I guess you'd say a verbal ("literary" is too pretentious sounding) family.  We're not a sporty family, neither really watching nor participating.  We're not an exceptionally musical family, liking to sing or listen but not having the skills (yet) to really play.  Instead, we read, we talk, and we write.   Sure it's not all we do (there's kung fu, crafting, baking, gardening, museums, history, traveling . . . but even most of those are relatively cerebral, as my pilates coach puts it), but we do manage to see and do things from that perspective more often.  Interested in basketball? Get a book from the library!  Like to draw dragons?  Let's make a dragon picture book with a story!  Enjoy birdwatching?  Keep a bird log!  Like the movie How to Train Your Dragon?  Read the book!  And then read a book about Norse mythology!  And we even got a book about the movie!

I mean, even this blog . . . apples don't fall far from the tree, of course, but it's become that much more obvious recently (now that they can read and write, though maybe that's the reason it's so prevalent now, as they learn and practice those skills).  And I'm not complaining--language arts skills will help them in school and with any kind of communications personally and professionally; plus there is enormous pleasure and inspiration that can be derived from reading, writing, and discussing.  It's how Mama and I operate.  But the challenge will be, as parents, to encourage that aspect of our family while also exploring other avenues, so that maybe someday sports or music won't be as much of a stretch for the kids as it is for me.

-=-=-=-=-=-
(hex bugs, Droon, Queen Clarion, and Gryffindor!)

A New Kind of Date Night

Date night used to be a semi-regular part of our lives. But, of course, under the circumstances (yes, my back and, perhaps even more, the loss of our now-collegiate babysitter), we don't do that anymore.  But my new therapist--a LCSW and cognitive behavioralist who is helping me cope with the emotional issues surrounding chronic pain and teaching me some techniques to "manage gracefully" (my new favorite phrase from Sylvia Boorstein's introduction to Buddhism, It's Easier than You Think)--suggested we try to adapt our enjoyment of date night (usually a restaurant meal and some casual bookstore browsing.) to our new circumstances, to think outside the box, to give us something else to do or talk about besides our worries and to-do list.  Take out, a new movie, another at-home activity, anything new that we can do once a week or so at home once the kids are asleep.

And so, being an A student and loving a project, I spent some time thinking on what we could do.  I remembered that Gretchen Rubin, in The Happiness Project, mentions that one piece of good advice she'd learned was for every couple to have two games they enjoyed together, one outdoors (like golf, tennis) and one indoors (like Scrabble).  Mama and I don't have an outdoor game (and probably won't, beyond short walks), but we do like to play chess and our new Harry Potter Lego game.  And we also used to do puzzles.  So we opted for a puzzle night, focusing on a holiday puzzle Mama had gotten last year after the holidays and was eager to do.  We brainstormed how I could do a puzzle--sideways on a board on the bed--and we rushed cleaning the kitchen and such last Friday night.

It was such fun!  We issued a moratorium on digital gadgets and stressful discussions to help protect the evening.  Then we curled up with the puzzle while listening to our music playlist on shuffle.  It was just what we needed to get us out of our rut and have some relaxing fun.  It will be so easy to do again--and we want to, especially because we didn't finish it.

The Puzzlers

Mama and the kids have started another puzzle. No, not the 100-piecers that Ma and Gong bought them yesterday.

A 500-piecer. Of our favorite "map" of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Luckily, Mama bought a puzzle mat.

'Cos I don't think they're going to finish it before church this morning.

It's a Puzzlement

The kids are moving up in the world and it's not just kindergarten: they're doing 100-piece puzzles! Mama, who did puzzles with her parents as a child, had purchased them 60-piece puzzles earlier this month, something for them to do independently when I couldn't play. And they quickly breezed through four of them--space, chocolate, horses, and dinosaurs. So today, during an outing to the grocery store, Mama picked up two bigger puzzles at the toy store, one on dinosaurs and one with a fairy princess. And they are currently getting the borders in, with minimal help from Mama. What's nice about the puzzles they're doing, by German company Ravensburger, is that the pieces are developmentally appropriate. In other words, the pieces are bigger than average even though there are a lot of them; typical small puzzle pieces, even if only 60 or 100 of them, would probably be much harder to manipulate with their burgeoning fine motor skills. The kids are so proud, particularly because they can complete the puzzles by themselves but most of all because they can tell that they are labeled "6 and up." Sis declared, "I feel just like a six-year old!"