Happy new year!

I have a post brewing in my brain, but we are off to the beach today, and I can’t get it together. Still, I wanted to get that Christmas tree off of the top of my blog. We de-Christmased the house yesterday; I wanted to do the same here. I leave you with a photo more in keeping with my current mindset.

I’ll be back soon with the typical blather you expect from me. (Reflections and resolutions, keep mingling in that brain!)

I’ve had half a post written for over a week now. But somehow, cookie-baking, wreath-making, sweater-knitting, gnocchi-shaping, veggie-pickling and Christmas movie-watching have kept that post from getting finished. I thought about simply posting photos of all those acts–a dispatch from Elf Land–but if you’ve seen one artsy, macro peppermint bark shot, you’ve seen enough.

Instead, I’m letting my half-finished post go, and including a photo I snapped with my phone, while dashing around Union Square in San Francisco, shopping. That’s what I have time for right now, and somehow it seems just right.

Merriest of merry Christmases to you, dear readers, and warmest winter wishes.

So, it’s November, and you’re certainly Halloweened out. You’ve probably moved on to pureeing pumpkins and writing novels. Still, in the name of DIY projects and for the love of duct tape, I wanted to share Mr. T’s Halloween costume.

(If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve probably seen this costume more times than you care to. I still haven’t figured out how my new phone is posting my photos to Twitter without me realizing it. Upstart phone!)

You may remember that in the spring, T and I fashioned some hoplite armor from duct tape for our homeschool group’s history fair. That was when I realized that you can pretty much make anything from duct tape. (Winter boots? Baby slings? Turkey platters?)

When T mentioned that he wanted to be Thor for Halloween–the Avengers’ Thor, mind you–we Googled up some images.

(Image from fanpop.)

Immediately the duct tape portion of my brain started humming. That helmet! That armor! We could make it!

We used the same technique that we used for the hoplite armor, taping over an old sweatshirt and its cut-off hood. More detailed explanation on that hoplite post.

For the helmet’s wings and for Mjölnir (that’s Thor’s hammer, if you need to brush up on your mythology), we headed over to The Foam Factory. (Who knew that such a place existed, not ten minutes from our house? And that they have a bin full of foam scraps for whatever crazy project you may dream up, available for less than you’d pay for a pack of Pokemon cards?)

If you keep adding layers of duct tape, and trimming them to size, you can build up practically any shape you imagine. Those big shoulder protrusions? No problem! (We ran out of time for making the arm bands and those wacky boot extension thingamajigs. But we could have fashioned them with duct tape too, easy.)

I went to three stores in search of fabric for the cape. Found nothing, even at the third, until I got to the remnant bin. Then I scored a huge piece of absolutely Thor-ish crimson fabric for $7.70. I already had the cape pattern at home, and the pieces fit along the selvedge with an eighth of an inch extra. Honestly. Meant to be.

About a week before Halloween, I found myself in one of those terrifying Halloween superstores. I actually came across a few pre-made Thor costumes, complete with ginormous plastic Mjölnirs, (one already busted at the handle.) But they were expensive and so, well, tacky. (I know, I know, what’s tackier than duct tape? Har, har.)

I could have pulled a piece of plastic from my wallet and been done with it. Yet there’s something so satisfying about getting an image in your mind and asking How could I make this? And when you bring your kid along for the ride, not only is the process fun, but the kid learns that no matter what you dream up, you might be able to make it real.

This makes me happy.

I don’t often write about food in this spot. Sometimes in an atwitter post. Mostly, I try to concentrate on learning and creativity–but I love how this poster reminds me that food is part of a basic education. That’s a belief that I hold so deeply that I’m going to have this poster mounted so I can hang it in my kitchen.

I bought it at Pop-up Panisse, a little temporary shop that’s gone up next door to Chez Panisse in Berkeley this week, to celebrate the restaurant’s 40th anniversary. There’s a whole lot of hoopla going on locally with that celebration. (We live about ten minutes away from the restaurant.) But it isn’t just local. Did you hear the Alice Waters interview on Fresh Air?

I probably take for granted how much Alice and her restaurant have influenced me, and the way I shop for food and cook. I imagine that I first stumbled across Alice in 1987, in the introduction to The Greens Cookbook, the first real cookbook I bought for myself. I’d become vegetarian a few years before, when I went off to college–if you don’t count a childhood spent pushing meat around my plate as avoidance technique–and I had a thing or two to learn about how to cook for myself and others.

I have an old magazine clipping from Metropolitan Home that must have run around 1990. It’s the story of a lunch in Alice Waters’ backyard, with photos of lilacs and Alice’s now-grown daughter Fanny, as a little girl with bangs and braids. There are recipes for egg salad sandwiches and fava beans with pecorino. I don’t think I even knew what fava beans were at the time. (This was before Silence of the Lambs, if you know what I mean.) The story coincided with Chris’ and my first backyard, and the hand-tinted photos of lunch with rosé in the vegetable garden were all the inspiration I needed.

I found Chez Panisse Vegetables a few years later, and it became, and still is, an education in how to shop seasonally for vegetables, and how to prepare them to actually taste good. (I grew up in the 70s, when vegetable meant microwaved bags of frozen peas and cubed carrots, understand.) I learned from Alice not to buy tomatoes in February, and what to do with a bunch of swiss chard. And how to turn fava beans, once I’d grown them myself, into a gorgeous, garlicky, chartreuse puree that I now crave every year when May rolls around.

I’ve only eaten at Chez Panisse a few times. (I’m a parent. And this is the San Francisco Bay Area! So many restaurants, so little time.) I keep the beautiful menus in my copy of Chez Panisse Vegetables. These are from the summer of 1999, on the occasion of Chris’ and my 11th anniversary. One was for the regular fixed menu; the other the vegetarian version.

We like to imagine ourselves someday when we’re old and all three kids are grown, driving over to Chez Panisse for the Downstairs Monday Night Dinners.

But anyone who pays any attention to food in the Bay Area knows that Chez Panisse is more than just a restaurant.

I’ve read the San Francisco Chronicle‘s food section religiously for more than twenty years now, and I’d bet a cafe au lait that Chez Panisse, Alice or one of her proteges get mentioned in at least a third of the issues. I’ve followed the restaurant’s anniversaries, its movement toward organics and sustainability, and the beginnings of the Edible Schoolyard Project. (I even ate a burrito beside Alice at Picante once. Not that I said anything. But I did point her out with an excited jerk of my head to Lulu, who must have been nine or ten at the time, and I’m proud to say that she actually knew who Alice was when I whispered her name, thanks to her love of the book Fanny at Chez Panisse.)

As Michael Pollan writes in the afterword of Alice’s new book:

“…Alice Waters genius has been to show us there can be no inspired cooking without inspired shopping, and beyond that, inspired farming. It’s become a cliché of restaurant menus to mention farms, but Chez Panisse was the first to share bylines–pride of authorship–with the men and women who grow the food, recognizing that many of them are as gifted as any who have passed through the fabled kitchen.”

I once took a poetry workshop for teachers which was held in the Edible Schoolyard garden at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Berkeley. We wrote haiku in the shade of young apple trees while anise swallowtails flitted around us. It was a sigh-inducing spot; still I couldn’t fathom that I was sitting in a garden that would soon inspire schoolyard gardens all over the country, and a global revolution for healthy lunches for kids.

My own efforts to get my kids to garden with me, to cook with me, have been mixed. They’ve been happy to interrupt their backyard play to poke a few seeds into the soil, or to pick and eat a few alpine strawberries, but that’s the extent of it. Lulu has loved to cook since she could stir a bowl of popover batter, but her brothers would only join us when the rare whim struck.

But they have a mother who believes that good, wholesome food matters, and you know what? I think that sinks in.

Longtime readers here may remember Lulu’s 100 Years Of Food project, her last big project as homeschooler before she decided to go to high school. That link includes the final section of Lulu’s project: her analysis of what happened with food in the years between 2000 and 2010. Her analysis is full of insight and hope–and it has everything to do with Alice Waters.

And then there was the story that unfolded in our kitchen this summer. My oldest has always been an enthusiastic eater, but he’s also been the kind of kid who wished soda came out of the faucet and that bread came only in sourdough. “Why isn’t there anything to eat in this house?” he ranted last summer. “Why can’t you buy anything without nuts and seeds in it?”

And then he spent a year eating in the dorms of NYU. Apparently the food revolution has not hit the halls of higher education in New York City. H described his freshman-year diet in a single word: appalling.

Some doppelgänger of my 19-year-old son showed up in my kitchen this summer. He wanted to learn to cook! He begged me to buy more vegetables! He refused sourdough rolls and asked for some real grainy bread!

The other night before he left for school, he helped me make dinner. I was explaining how to saute mushrooms, how he needed to give them enough space in the pan or they’d steam instead of brown. And that he needed to leave them alone to sizzle a bit, and not go stirring them up too soon.

“How would I know that?” he asked. The dorm he’ll be moving into this year is apartment-style, with a kitchen, and he is determined to cook for himself.

“You can always call me when you’re cooking something new,” I said. And then I remembered something.

I pulled a copy of Alice Waters’ The Art of Simple Food off my shelf. It was given to me as a gift, and it’s the only one of my Alice Waters cookbooks that isn’t food-splattered and dog-eared. It was written for beginning cooks, and while there are plenty of fine recipes inside, I suppose I am somewhat beyond it. But it explains how to roast a chicken, how to make pesto, how to prepare a chopped salad to your liking.

And it tells precisely how to saute mushrooms.

When I showed it to H his response was simply, “Awesome.”

So the cookbook flew back east in a suitcase and a new kitchen will be born.

Alice Water’s new book, 40 Years of Chez Panisse, is a gorgeous thing. It’s packed with photos and stories of the restaurant’s history. At fifty-five dollars it was a splurge, but I had to have it. It tells so much about the place where I live, and my own coming of age with food.

I especially love the book’s subtitle: The Power of Gathering. That’s the heart of it all. I believe that one of the greatest gifts we can give our kids is time to gather together, over food lovingly grown, shopped for and prepared, with our undivided attention.

It makes a difference.

Happy anniversary, Chez Panisse!

And thank you, Alice Waters.

Phew, that last birthday post really did feel like a party.

I’ve never had so many of you show up in the comments at once (which only shows how willingly you indulge my pleading.) There were folks I’d never met before, and others I haven’t heard from in a while. There were the regulars too, but it was something to see them here all at once, as if they’d carpooled over together.

And I got to flit around and chat with each of you. It was like wandering around in my maxi-dress and flip-flops with a cocktail, and having it last all week.

I had such a whopping good time that I’ve decided that as long as I’m blogging, I’m going to have a virtual birthday party every year. An annual excuse to call my readers down from their fly-on-the-wall spots. Come out, come out where ever you are!

Next year there will be party favors.

Selfishly, I’ve left the post up for well over a week, so the stragglers could find us. But also because I’ve been busy preparing my conference workshops. Really, I must get back to them, so in lieu of a more extended blog post, I thought I’d leave you with a series of quotes to ponder. Let’s turn this party into a salon. Or a coffee talk.

These are some quotes I’ll be using to kick off one of my workshops. I’m not going to comment on them today, but read along and see if you can guess where I’ll be heading.

“You don’t learn to write by going through a series of preset writing exercises. You learn to write by grappling with a real subject that matters to you.” Ralph Fletcher, What a Writer Needs

“Motivation is crucial to writing—students will write far more willingly if they write about subjects that interest them and that they have an aptitude for.” William Zinnser, Writing to Learn

“When kids groan at writing time, it’s usually a sign that they don’t have enough opportunities to choose what they want to write about. They don’t see writing time as their time to explore. It is lesson-driven, teacher-driven and assignment-driven. Escaping this paradigm is the first order of business.” Barry Lane, But How Do You Teach Writing?

“But if we’re serious about helping students to fall in love with literature, to get a kick out of making words fall together in just the right order, then we have to be attentive to what makes these things more, and less likely, to happen. It may take us a while, but ultimately our classroom should turn the default setting on its head so that the motto becomes: Let the students decide except where there’s a good reason why we have to decide for them.” Alfie Kohn, Feel-Bad Education

“Students now need…more informal writing, they need more exploration, and they need to do things that really matter to them—or to explicitly see how what they are doing in school can and does matter out in the world.” Jeffrey Wilhelm, Teaching the Neglected “R”

“Because I had not, at the time, experienced the power of writing in my own life, I did not understand that there is a world of difference between ‘motivating writing’ and helping people become deeply and personally involved in their own writing…We cannot teach writing well unless we trust that there are real, human reasons to write.” Lucy Calkins, The Art of Teaching Writing

“The good writers I see in college have often developed their skill in self-sponsored writing projects like journals or epic, book-length adventure stories they wrote on their own.” Thomas Newkirk, Holding on to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones

To take a phrase from Coffee Talk with Linda Richman, said in my best Mike-Myers-as-Linda, New Yawk accent, with a double-handed flourish: Talk amongst yourselves.

At least I’m calling it a party.

(Totally unrelated party photo from a friend’s fabulous recent gathering.)

Today is my blog’s third birthday.

Funny to think back to June 18, 2008. It was the summer that H was sixteen, a month before he went to high school as a junior–so we still had a house of three homeschooled kids. Lulu wasn’t even a teenager yet. And Mr. T was, sniff, a sweet six.

My first post was an explanation of my blog’s name, which became the What’s A Wonder Farm? page over on that there sidebar. It had a little photo of six-year-old Mr. T, drawing and coloring the letters that still sit up there in my header. I cut out his letters and glued them over a page in my journal, took a photo and slapped it on the top of my new blog. After three years, I’ve never considered replacing that header. What could be better than my kid’s writing superimposed over my own? It’s a metaphor, I suppose, for our life as homeschoolers.

I took that photo of T with a cruddy little point-and-shoot camera. Mr. T isn’t even in focus–the background is. Funny how blogging makes you care about photography. I’m still a complete amateur, but I’ve learned. As my camera got fancier, my focus got sharper. Or maybe visa versa.

It was sort of a scary thing to hit that publish button on that June afternoon three years ago. At the time, I worried that blogging would keep me from getting my “real” writing done. Those days, I was writing personal essays about parenting, and barely finding time for that.

And honestly, the blog has taken time from my other writing. Even just a single post a week, which is all I usually manage, takes up a good chunk of my weekly writing time. (Shorter posts might help, but I’m as good at writing short posts as I am at washing dishes while I cook.)

So I just keep chugging out these weekly posts, and occasionally even churn out a second. In three years I’ve only missed maybe one or two weeks. Chug, chug, chug…I’m the Little Engine That Could of Blogland.

Why?

Sometimes I wonder. But the answer, I suppose, comes at the end of each post. My first comment came from my dear college friend, Emily, which is darned appropriate. She’s my techiest of friends. The same friend who nagged me to get on e-mail back in 1995, because she was tired of always sending hand-written notes when we briefly lived in Oregon. (Yes, she kept writing them anyway, with her signature floral flourishes. She’s that kind of friend.)

And then I got a few comments from people I didn’t even know. And that was when the cocktail party really got interesting. Imagine it: words I’d written and photos I’d taken connected themselves with like-minded people whose hands I’d never shaken. I met visitors from states I’d never visited. Eventually commenters dropped by from Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and India. Sort of like grown-up pen pals.

And then something else happened along the way. I found myself with what you might call a calling.

See, somehow in all the give-and-take with commenters, I began to recognize that I had a unique perspective when it came to kids and writing. And that some people might actually be interested in this perspective. Which started me on a path I’d never anticipated: writing a book for parents. I have no idea how long it will take me. Or whether it can captivate a publisher. Or anyone else. Still. This book project has given me a purpose in my days that wasn’t there before. And this blog and you readers gave that to me.

Thank you.

You readers are why I do this. I know some bloggers will say that they don’t blog for audience, that they do it for themselves, for the satisfaction they get from simply recording their lives. Not me. I’m here for the connection. My heart still speeds up a little when I get an e-mail that someone has left a comment here. It makes me feel a little pathetic, relying so much on others for that thrill, but the buzz of connection is the point to me.

I admit: sometimes I wish there were more of you readers. I wish those e-mailed comment alerts showed up more often. I wish that when I offered a giveaway here, the line of responders would trail on down the street, but that’s not how it is. Sometimes the voices in my head get a tad whiney about that, but the truth is, I’ll never be a Blogging Superstar. I don’t post enough, my posts are too long, my topics too esoteric. I don’t find time to comment on all the blogs I’d like to, I’m still not on Facebook and I’ve never posted a recipe or a tutorial.

Huh. Why the heck do you people keep showing up here anyway?

No matter. You do show up. My dad is a computer geek, and I’m guessing he’s one of the first to read anything I post. My mom shows up too, and my brother even comes for advice, as “little” brothers are wont to do. My hubby reads all my posts and only skims the rant-y writing ones. My uncle leaves comments on occasion, and my husband’s aunt even told me that she comes by. Who knew?

I’ve met fellow homeschoolers at the park who have surprised me by telling me they read my blog. I met one reader while buying sausages for my family at Whole Foods. An old boyfriend sometimes stops by. As does one of my daughter’s friends, and the wife of a business acquaintance of my husband. Funny.

Many of my closest friends never read this blog. Some have even told me flat out how they don’t like blogs. I get that. It’s not for everyone to spend their online time perusing other people’s spewings. But I can’t help but think that those friends don’t quite know me like the rest of you do–even those of you who live in India, or whom I’ve met once when buying groceries. Because after three years, this blog has become something. I’m not sure what. Sometimes it seems like an actual place–one of those places that you go where everybody knows your name, a place that I miss if I’m away too long. Sometimes this blog simply feels like a part of me, like if you drew a diagram of my brain, Wonder Farm would earn itself some good acreage up in the right corner.

So thank you, all you kind people who have shown up here over the past three years. Thank you to those of you who have left comments, and shared your stories and encouraged me.

Do me a favor, would you? Would you leave me a comment, and wish my blog a happy birthday? Even if you never leave comments, even if you’ve never commented before, might you try? Because it’s my blog’s birthday, and I’m having a party. And it isn’t a party if you don’t have guests, and flies on the wall don’t count.

I’d give you cake and a party hat if I could.

(Edited to add: But I do have a party favor! I extended the deadline for the Alphabet Glue giveaway until this Friday at midnight. Three days just wasn’t enough when I typically post weekly. So swing by my last post and leave a comment to win, if you haven’t already!)

Ever wish you could hear me yammer on in person about the stuff I write about here? Uh, probably not. After all, in person it’s not so easy to click me closed when I’m too longwinded. Nevertheless, if you’ll happen to be in California, nearabouts Sacramento in early August, you’ll have your chance. I’ll be speaking at the annual HomeSchool Association of California conference, which runs from August 4-7.

I’ll even try to make it worth your while, so you won’t itch to click me quiet.

I’ll be offering two workshops at the conference. The first is on the topic of dictation, which I’ve rambled about on this blog, plenty. Here’s the description:

Dictation: The Writing Tool that has “Homeschooler” Written All Over It

Dictation simply means having one person write for another. It isn’t a method widely used in schools, simply because the adult-to-child ratio doesn’t allow it, but it’s an ideal way to approach writing for homeschoolers. Many kids dislike writing because learning the mechanics—spelling, grammar, penmanship and keyboarding—is an incredibly difficult, complex task that can take years to master. Dictation allows kids to develop their unique, vivid voices as writers from a very early age, while acquiring those mechanical skills gradually and naturally over time. It helps them enjoy the satisfaction of written self-expression without getting bogged down!  It’s also a helpful technique for older, reluctant writers, and for fluent writers who need help starting a challenging project.  In this workshop we’ll explore the role of dictation in a fun, child-centered approach to writing. We’ll discuss tips for how to take dictation successfully, and we’ll examine the advanced writing skills that kids can pick up painlessly, simply by dictating what they have to say to a willing, writing adult. Techniques shared in this workshop should be helpful to all manner of homeschoolers, from the more formal to the most radically unschooled.

The second workshop is a little quirkier. It’s based on the research that fascinated and sidetracked me for several months earlier this year:

Writing in the World, Writing in Schools—and The Implications for Homeschooled Writers

With our shifting technologies, writing is becoming more important than ever in our world. Literacy researcher Deborah Brandt writes, “For perhaps the first time in the history of mass literacy, writing seems to be eclipsing reading as the experience of consequence.” Yet at the same time, largely due to the current climate of standards and testing, most schools are giving writing short shrift. Progressive writing educators are calling for a writing revolution, saying that students need to write more often, with more freedom, about what matters to them, and in the formats that they’re using outside of school. Sounds a lot like what we homeschoolers do already, doesn’t it? In this workshop, we’ll begin by looking at the research to gain a better understanding of writing’s status in the world and in schools. Then we’ll explore how we homeschoolers are in an excellent position to encourage exciting, profound, child-centered writing experiences for our kids—all kids, from the youngest through the teens. Together, we’ll brainstorm ways to turn your child’s personal interests into meaningful, engaging writing. If you’ve ever worried that your child might learn to write better in a classroom setting, come to this workshop and prepare to be surprised.

I’m not sure this second description quite captures what I hope to do in this workshop. I’m afraid the talk of research and schools might scare off folks, and I sure hope more than three or four show up because, dang, I’m excited about this one! It’s a topic that speeds up my heart and my speech. I wasn’t really sure why I got so caught up with what’s happening with writing in schools, when I’m trying to write a book on writing for homeschoolers, but ultimately it was the recommendations of progressive writing educators that brought it all home for me. They’re begging teachers, administrators and policy makers to do what we homeschoolers do already. Let kids write about their passions! Find writing formats that kids are internally driven towards! So many homeschooling parents have fears about their kids and writing–I’m hoping to convince them that we have the freedom to give our kids the kind of writing education that won’t make it into most classrooms for years. Kid-centered, interest-driven writing is what will make writers of our kids. And, according to Deborah Brandt, these days we all need to be writers.

So if you can, come see me yatter! I’ll do my best to get your heart beating faster too. I’ll be speaking on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Full conference schedule here. If you’re local and you’ve never been to the conference, it’s worth a try–even if you go for just one day.

Planning for these workshops is sort of heady stuff for summertime. Lest you think I’m not working at my summer list, I leave you with photos to prove otherwise.

My foothill home companion, cherry-picking and photo-taking.

Cherry clafoutis.

Knitting in sand.

Girls on beaches.

Boys on boats.

Fireworks over lakes.

Homemade Bakesale Batty fried chicken sandwiches under pines. (Mine had fried zucchini.)

County fair. 99 cent day, 99 degrees.

What’s keeping you busy so far this summer?

Over at her Foothill Home recently, my friend Molly posted her summer to-do list. Inspiring. Mr. T had already started his list, so I combined his with mine, and here’s what we have so far.

Swim with friends and family. Often.

Have a puzzle going at all times. (Stolen from Molly. Check!)

Make good things with our homegrown ollalieberries and plums. Use Blue Chair for inspiration.

Collect rocks with Mr. T and learn about them. (And make some heart stones.)

Set up our tent in the backyard.

Visit an orchard and pick all-time favorite fruits–cherries. (Friday, M and A!)

Take out the sewing machine and finish those curtains for the office before summer guests arrive.

While the sewing machine is out, finally make a picnic quilt from the family jeans, saved for over a decade.

Go to the county fair (and spend a little time in my childhood hometown.)

Make stuffed and fried zucchini blossoms with the recipe learned from cute Italian nonna at Spannocchia (and enjoy every fried bite, without thinking of bathing suits.)

Read adventure books to Mr. T (another borrowed from Molly. Suggestions, anyone?)

Get better at pulling my own mozzarella, before the tomatoes come in.

Sketch with T. (Underway!)

Clear those sprawling rose shrubs and finally make a space for a hammock. When it’s hung, christen it by relaxing there with a tall pastis.

Get back in the habit of capturing it all through a lens.

What’s on your summer lists, my friends?

For one thing, it was sunny, after days of grey clouds.

There were corn cherry scones from Arizmendi. And some wonderful sheep’s milk ricotta drizzled with our own honey. And strawberries.

Good music played. Some DeVotchKa. And the new Fleet Foxes that’s been in heavy rotation.

There were presents. Things that any May baby would love.

But best of all: there were five people around the breakfast table.

We’ve had a tradition, since the kids were babies, of family breakfasts for birthdays. But this year, with H at college, it was never quite the same. There were just four of us, and a gap at the table. H even spent his own 19th birthday, just a week before, at school in New York.

Everyone was here for Mama’s birthday. And that was really the best present anyone could have given me.

Well, except for this card. I’m always telling the kids that I don’t want store-bought presents. Make me something. A drawing. A cake. A playlist. It was easier when they were little, but now the older two feel like their handmade gifts aren’t enough. Luckily, this May those older two were too busy to shop. So the night before my birthday–when I was out–all three conspired and made this giant card together.

T drew.

Lulu found poetry.

H cut and assembled paper.

I love it dearly.

Inside there are sentiments. We have another tradition, on special birthdays and celebrations, of compiling Lists of Great Things for people. My extended family made a list of 70 Great Things about Gramps for my dad’s 70th a few years back. The lists are always a fun combination of sweet and silly–on my dad’s list we complimented his patience and teased about his toes and his twin.

According to H, as the kids were finishing the card, Mr. T “appeared” with a list of his own. Chris’ grandmother always had a phrase: Don’t throw roses at yourself. I hesitate to share T’s list–roses if there ever were roses. But I figured all my mother-readers would appreciate it. Plus, he’s nine. I only have a little time left of his not minding what I share here. And only a little time left for him to see me in such light.

8 Great Things about Mama

• She makes everyone around her happy.
• She is never impatient.
• She is nice to everyone.
• She is never bitter.
• She is a great writer, knitter, teacher and mom.
• She is always honest.
• She is good at reading when she’s asleep. (I have a tendency to nod off while reading aloud…)
• She is always (his spelling) greatfull.

It really was one fine morning.

A photo from last New Year’s Day. A quote recently discovered. The quote’s attribution is disputed, but I love it so much that I’ll take it anyway. It’s a lovely analogy for the way I hope to parent, and what this wonderfarm is all about. A thought to carry into the new year.

Happy 2011, cherished readers.