creativity

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norse myths, wii games and a whole lot of thinking

February 14, 2010 in books, creativity, homeschooling, learning, my waldorf guilt, writing | 19 comments

If you haven’t been reading along, these are the posts in which I wring my hands over how un-waldorfy things can get around here, and how I tend to feel guilty about it. Or try to justify why I don’t feel guilty.

I’ve been feeling less and less guilty lately. Brought on by a confluence of different ideas from different people.

First was Michael Chabon’s Manhood for Amateurs. I’ve already raved on and on about this book, so I’ll spare you. (Although if you can get your hands on the audiobook version, which Chabon reads, you must.) In my reflection on the book, I wrote this:

“There’s something about the way Chabon combines his Pulitzer Prize-winning style with the most base cultural references that captivates me. In his essay on Legos—one that had particular resonance for me as the mother of two Lego-loving sons—Chabon writes, “Time after time, playing Legos with my kids, I would fall under the spell of the old familiar crunching. It’s the sound of creativity itself, of the inventive mind at work, making something new out of what you have been given by your culture, what you know you will need to do the job, and what you happen to stumble upon along the way.” That making something new of what you have been given by your culture is a big part of Chabon’s genius. It’s precisely what he does in these essays, again and again.”

And one could certainly argue that Chabon made something new of what he was given by his culture when he took his lowly childhood love of comic books and fashioned it into a Pulitzer prize-winning novel.

Second was my reading of Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. I’m planning to write a post on the book soon, so I won’t say much yet. But holy sheep dip, this book has so many implications for educators–for homeschoolers especially–about the skills kids will really need in the future. So many of Pink’s ideas are what I and a world of other homeschoolers have intuited over the years, but what a joy to get such heavily-researched validation!

Third was yet another insightful post by Lori at camp creek about not limiting what our kids learn from. (You may have already clicked on my link to this post in the sidebar–if not, go read!)

Which all led to the morning when Mr. T was trying to come up with a project for our homeschool history fair, based on his interest in Norse myths. I can’t remember who came up with the idea first–it may have been my suggestion after I saw how he was “enacting” a video game by jumping across the family room furniture. But somehow the idea formed: he plans to design his own Lego Wii-style game, based on Norse mythology.

map of the nine Norse worlds

Now he won’t be actually making a playable game, of course. But he’s imagining levels and drawing pictures and narrating to me what happens in each. And we’re thinking of begging his big brother to help him make some stop-animation films for each level.

Here’s what he has so far. My waldorf guilt must warn you that there is a lot of virtual punching involved. But if you can hang in there, I’ll explain what I think the kid is getting from this.

map of level 1

LEVEL 1: THE BATTLE OF YMIR

Object: Defeat Ymir

First of all, go to Ymir and punch him three times. He will jump to a ledge. Beware, he’ll throw icicles down! Also, jotuns will fall from the sky. They’ll only take one punch to defeat.

Remember, don’t go into Ginnungagap or the sides of the board or you’ll die.

Go under Ymir’s ledge and pull down a lever. More ledges will come out of the wall. Jump on them to get to Ymir’s ledge and punch him three times. He’ll jump to a new ledge and the one you’re on will explode. You’ll fall to the ground.

Then, go under Ymir’s new ledge and step on one of the three red squares. Your teammates will step on the other red squares. Then Ymir’s new ledge will come down. Jump on to it and punch him three times. He’ll jump to the ground. Punch him three more times and the level will end.

Tips:

How to get the magic box: in Free Play, be Loki or a different character that can jump really high and jump on to the island in the middle of Ginnungagap. Collect the floating box.

If you win:

You unlock Odin and his brothers and you can be them in Free Play.

How this level is based on Norse myths:

Well, there really wasn’t any levers, red squares, floating boxes, jotuns falling from the sky, or an island in the middle of Ginnungagap. Really, there wasn’t any Lego things whatsoever.

What there really was were the characters of Odin, Loeder and Hoenir, who were brothers and the first of the Aesir gods. There also was Ymir, who was the first of the jotun race, or a frost giant. Odin and his brothers really fought Ymir and they did throw him into Ginnungagap. I didn’t put blood in because I didn’t want it to be too violent, but there was blood in the story. Ginnungagap was a giant pit in the middle of Niflheim and Muspelheim, the first of the nine Norse worlds.

Nifty fact:

The Star Wars planet Mustafar was based on Muspelheim.

First, I have to tell you how incredibly excited Mr. T is about this project. He thinks about future levels endlessly, and begs me to take more dictation. So there’s deep immersion.

Second, there are lots of writing skills at work here. After I wrote Level 1, he said, “Now do the dot-dot thing.”

I knew what he was getting at. “You mean put a colon in?”

“Yes, a colon.” And he came to check that I did it right. On the next line, after I typed object, he said, “Now put a colon.”

How can I not be charmed by an eight-year-old who requests colons in all the right places?

I asked him if he’d consider adding the How this level is based on Norse myths section (hoping to make sure the project looks somewhat educational for the homeschool fair.) Mr. T was happy to. He said, “Can the narrator be funny in that part?”

“What?” I didn’t see that question coming.

“You know, funny. Like this.” And he proceeded to narrate the section above, influenced, I’m pretty sure, by the disclaimer page that follows each Magic Schoolbus book. My favorite part is Really, there wasn’t any Lego things whatsoever. (I’m not fixing his grammar at this point–he’ll learn to use the right verb tenses in time, but for now I want to keep intact his eight-year-old voice.) I love how he’s picking up the notion that one can write with personality and humor, even in nonfiction.

“Oh, and I want to add a nifty fact.” A nifty fact? I have no idea where he got that phrase. From National Geographic Kids? From one of the many behind-the-scenes books on comics that he’s read? When I asked where he got this particular nifty fact, he ran upstairs and brought down his Star Wars encyclopedia. Surely wii games and Star Wars books are just the sort of “crap” that Michael Chabon writes about; my kid is using crap to learn how to make his informational writing captivating.

He’s using just the sort of right-brained thinking that Pink writes about to put this project together. He’s researching Norse myths and considering the wii games that he likes to play. Then he’s applying his research to design a game that takes into account those myths while also being entertaining. Silly as his project may sound, I’m convinced that these are the types of skills the kids of today will need in the future. It’s not the content that he’s working with that matters so much, it’s the thinking skills involved.

If content like wii games is what captivates my kid, I’m willing to go with it. And, surprisingly, I don’t feel even a smidge guilty.

the week in between

December 30, 2009 in celebrations and traditions, creativity, makin' stuff, the bees | 16 comments

The bees had a festive time.

And so did we.

Requisite annual monkey pull-apart bread photo.

Chris and I got, finally, our own stockings. Handmade by Lulu.

Daddy got guitar picks.

Mama got yarn.

Some of the best gifts were old ones.

For a long time, Lulu has wanted an old typewriter. Chris found this one in the shed of his grandparents’ home, after his grandmother died. He cleaned it up, although it still needs some repair work.

How she thanked us.

A while back I asked my parents about a picnic basket they had when I was a kid, that had belonged to my grandmother. They made like they’d given it away, but look what I got on Christmas Day:

My mom can’t quite believe I’m so excited about such a battered old thing. But it’s an authentic Hawkeye Refrigerator! It’s lined in metal! It has a compartment for ice! (Or, these days, freezer packs.) No more cruddy plastic cooler for Park Day lunches!

The best gifts, I think, are the unconventional ones.

Yes, he got Christmas presents. But not long after the gift-opening, this is what I found him doing. Playing with the typewriter box.

This week I’ve been listening to Vespertine by Björk. I have never listened to Björk, just as I have never used an umlaut on this blog. But the album is perfectly quiet and otherworldly for this out-of-time week, this verging on a new year.

Hope your week is peaceful and thought-provoking.

projects, part two

December 18, 2009 in books, celebrations and traditions, creativity, makin' stuff | 14 comments

This post brought to you courtesy of the creativity of the ever-crafty Lulu.

Last Friday I spent the morning descending into the internet hell of IP addresses that would not work, computer settings improperly changed, baffling terms like DNS and PPPoe and DHCP, and several futile phone calls to a so-called service provider who would not help me unless I paid $99 for some service.

I asked Lulu if she would please do something with Mr. T so he would not be totally ignored as I descended further and further into the depths.

Look at what she came up with.

That’s a Christmas ornament for one of Mr. T’s friends. Made with Pokemon cards.

Lulu came up with the project herself. She’d seen something similar, done with photos, in the fabulously fun book I’d bought for her, Photojojo: Insanely Great Photo Projects and DIY Ideas. Somehow she decided that the same idea would work for her brother’s beloved Pokemon cards.

Martha Stewart, I know she’s only 14 and all, but you really oughta hire this girl.

She showed me how she did it, and a few days later (and a few minor yet essential computer settings discovered and changed), I helped Mr. T make a few more. We adapted the basic Photojojo instructions, as per Lulu’s advice. I drew four lines, each half an inch apart on the cards. Mr. T cut along the lines, and I punched the holes. (That part is tough for little hands.)

Mr. T lined up the card strips (a fun little puzzle) and inserted the brads. Two cards made each ornament. According to T, both cards should be of the same color, and the yarn tie must match. Must match.

Oops, he’s got the brads in backwards there. We also had to fold the brad tips in half after bending them, as they were rather long.

Voila!

As I helped Mr. T spread Charizard Christmas cheer, Lulu was up to something new.

She’s stitching up a voodoo doll. Of the actor Robert Pattinson from the Twilight films. Lulu and her friends are Twilight-crazed, but apparently not crazy for Pattinson.

Lulu also found this project in her Photojojo book. I wished I’d gotten better photos of the dolls, with the pins and all, but Lulu snatched them away and wrapped them up before I ever got a chance.

I think the gifts were a hit. All I know is that yesterday at the park, when she passed out three of these dolls to her friends, I heard the most ear-ravaging set of teenage girls’ screams.

Leave me a comment, Martha, and I’ll pass along her number.

projects, part one

December 16, 2009 in books, creativity, homeschooling, makin' stuff | 20 comments

Hey, how about a less wordy post for a change? How about some projects?

The first is a knitting project that I actually finished a while back, and have been meaning to share.

This is the sweater that made my sweater coat jealous.

The sweater is Jane, from Custom Knits by Wendy Bernard. The bottom portion of the sweater as written is designed with a chevron pattern; I decided to try something lacy instead. I used the lace pattern from the Lacy Skirt with Bows that I knit from Greetings From Knit Cafe.

I’m happy with how it came out. (Just don’t tell my sweater coat how much more often I wear this one.)

More (typically) ramblesome details here for you Ravelers.

I also have a writing project to share. I have a new essay in the November/December issue of Natural Life magazine. This is the second time running that one of my essays has been retitled for publication–I originally named this piece “Homeschooling My MFA” (and I have to say that I prefer the cheekiness of that title.) In the essay I look back on nearly twenty years of trying to teach myself to write–and realize that what I’ve been doing looks a lot like what my kids do as homeschoolers.

You can read the essay here. I’ll try to pop back in soon to post more projects. There’s fun stuff happening all around. Lulu, in particular, is crafting herself silly.

science and silliness

November 20, 2009 in creativity, homeschooling, learning | 14 comments

Last week, our homeschool group had a math and science fair. Kids shared displays on a math or science topic. At our history fair in the spring, Mr. T had been disappointed that few kids seemed interested in his “history of the planets” display. He wanted more visitors this time.

No problem. He decided that he wanted to do “fizzy” experiments. To guarantee an audience, he would display as alter ego Dr. Curlybrain, mad scientist.

For a few weeks we tried out simple experiments at home to find a few good ones. Our inspiration was the fun book Cool Chemistry Concoctions: 50 Formulas that Fizz, Foam, Splatter & Ooze. The winners: cleaning pennies with salt and vinegar; a lava-lamp-like jar to shake, filled with oil and food-colored water; a jar with layers of liquids of different densities in which small items could be dropped and their landing layers predicted. But the real crowd magnets were the one in which a hard-boiled egg got sucked into a small-necked bottle by the force of a lighted match, and the one that had him inflating a balloon by filling it with baking soda and attaching it to a vinegar-filled bottle.

As his audience started growing, Mr. T seemed to forget he was a mad scientist, and morphed into a stand-up comic instead. He tossed off stream-of-consciousness jokes that often made no sense–anything to keep that audience from moving on. What, you don’t think vinegar is funny? How about if I pour it on my mom?

In the weeks of trying out the experiments, Mr. T kept a logbook. He made that fun too. (And yes, he drew a log on the cover.) He gave each experiment a silly name–the baking soda-inflated balloon experiment was christened The Power Pump–and eventually started drawing comics for each experiment.

In the penny-cleaning experiment, the chloride from salt combines with the hydrogen from vinegar and forms hydrochloric acid, a solution strong enough to clean pennies. He came up with this (I wrote the characters’ names for him):

After the fair, the science fun continued, as my friend Susan from In the Kitchen wrote a post recommending They Might Be Giants’ new science album, Here Comes Science. (Go read her post. There’s singing! There are many reallys!) We bought the CD the next day–it’s just Mr.T’s cup of hot chocolate. There’s science! There’s silliness! He was especially taken with the song “Meet the Elements”.

“Hey! I want to draw a bunch of comics about elements that react against each other!”

This announcement came as I was trying to get us to some appointment or meeting, and I was madly dashing to assemble snacks, coats, assure the rabbits had been fed…

Him: Can you Google some chemical reactions for me?

Me: Buddy, I’m trying to get us out the door.

Him: Just Google it real fast and I’ll read it.

Me: You can’t just Google chemical reactions. Why don’t you draw a comic for water–two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen? (This was the best I could manage in my mad dash to fill water bottles. I do not possess multi-tasking skills.)

Him: (wailing) I can’t have two of the same element in my comic!

I promised we would research the next day. (But can you Google some chemical reactions for me makes me smile, now that I’m not rushing out the door. Ah, the fathomless faith of an eight-year-old in his mother’s ability to work out what he dreams up.)

So today we researched. And he did make that comic about water. With just one hydrogen atom.

He also made one about gold. (Apparently he got over his distaste for drawing two atoms of the same element.) I’m not sure there’s any solid science in this one, but it cracks me up. Do you see what the two gold atoms are saying to each other upon meeting? (I probably should have added an extra e to make Spar-kle-us three syllables.)

“I’m Sparkleus!” “I’m Sparkleus!” That’s Mr. T’s little homage to Spartacus. You know, the scene when all the slaves claim to be Spartacus, to protect the real Spartacus? I’m Spartacus! No, I’m Spartacus!

I have no idea what that has to do with gold. I’m telling you, this kid is twisted. But hey, I’m up for anything, if it makes science fun.

a zaballos brothers production

November 14, 2009 in creativity, lens looking, out and about | 14 comments

H and Mr. T worked on a film together last weekend. Only unlike the Coens, this pair has one brother who directs, and one who acts.

H has been filming Mr. T as long as he’s been playing around with movie cameras. A brother almost ten years younger makes good fodder for a teenage filmmaker. Especially when that younger brother is willing to do almost anything: being the candy-loving superhero Super T, a slightly insane Pirate Ninja Man, a very young James Bond. (H was inspired early on by Robert Rodriguez after reading Rebel Without a Crew. Have you seen Rodriguez’ short student film “Bedhead“, featuring his younger siblings?)

This latest project was H’s first serious collaboration with his brother. The original idea for this film started brewing after H visited the odd local spot referred to as the Albany Bulb. The link takes you to an article from the San Francisco Chronicle, which begins:

“It’s a little spit of land jutting out into the San Francisco Bay from Albany on the eastern shore. Boasting a world-class view of the Golden Gate bridge and spectacular sunsets, the Bulb was originally a dump, covered over with dirt and then by vegetation. Deemed toxic, and neglected for many years, this unwanted trash heap was claimed by kindred spirits; fellow outcasts like homeless people and artists and finally, dog-walkers who could let their canine charges run wild.”

Everywhere on the The Bulb, you’ll find art. A giant driftwood dragon, an amphitheater made from junk, the heart-shaped “Castle” created from concrete and shopping cart parts.

When H saw the Castle, a story began to collect, about a young boy who lives on an island, alone, making a home in the Castle and gazing across the water at the skyline of San Francisco. H saw it as a wordless film, without much explanatory narrative. A film that could capitalize on the wildly disparate images of the Bulb: nature and garbage, sunsets and art crafted from cast-offs. A place that somehow conveys both hopefulness and hopelessness.

And of course, H had the perfect actor in mind.

I was a little worried about that. It was one thing to have H and Mr. T collaborate on home-spun projects together. But this would be made with H’s film program. His instructor from the program would be there. Even more of a concern: the program had been gifted with some actual 16 mm film, and H’s project was to be shot on it. Because shooting on film is so different from shooting on digital, they would hire a cinematographer to work with H. And they couldn’t afford lots of extra shots; the film was too precious.

It would be one very long day’s shoot. And I had no idea how Mr. T would hold up.

Turns out, he’s a pro. A pro with a bit of attitude. He didn’t like rehearsing shots. H would tell him what he wanted, and when they filmed the digital rehearsal (to record the sound), Mr. T would do some half-hearted little pantomime. But as soon as the film camera rolled (and you can hear film rolling in a camera), T would nail just what H asked for. Usually on the first shot.

Of course, he had no lines, which helped.

Chris and I were there for the day, from 8:00 am to 5:30, to serve as child wranglers and food fetchers. But I didn’t have a lot to do. Other than a little bit of costume-fixing, a good deal of knitting, and a good deal of watching my boys.

A film shoot can be about as exciting as watching bread dough rise. It’s slow and tedious and often eye-crossingly boring. But what amazes me is that H, a kid I would never describe as patient, loves every minute of it. He has such a strong vision of what he wants for each shot, and he’s willing to do what it takes to get it.

On Thursday, H left for Los Angeles for a field trip with his film program. One of their destinations is FotoKem , the largest film processing lab on the west coast. They’ll have a tour, they’ll have their film processed. Then, according to H’s film project director, “we’ll have a chance to screen our 16mm film in an in-house theater specifically for watching ‘dailies’. They’ll be sitting in seats previously occupied by Scorsese, Coppola, etc.”

It’s an amazing opportunity.

When I asked H why shooting on film is such a big deal, he got up out of his chair and started pacing around the kitchen, he was so excited. “It’s just gonna look so good!” But shooting on film is nerve-wracking too: H won’t know how his footage came out until he sees it screened in that theater. I can’t wait to find out.

The lab will transfer the film to digital. Then when H gets home, he’ll begin editing.

I have no doubt that H will find work in the film industry, someday, somewhere. But Mr. T as an actor? Who knows? Waiting to see H’s film develop is nothing compared to waiting to see this wacky kid develop. If Mr. T does decide to continue acting, if one day some cheesy Barbara Walters special wants vintage footage, we’ll have lots of good stuff to offer. Footage lovingly filmed by his brother.

how to set a house on fire

September 1, 2009 in creativity, homeschooling, out and about | 18 comments

A titillating post title (but perhaps an inappropriate one given the number of wildfires tearing through California right now.)

I’m using it because it’s the title of H’s latest film. It screened at the SF Museum of Modern Art last night. It was part of a selection of youth films which are being released on a companion disc with the latest issue of Big Bell, a local literary magazine.

going to the moma

I will probably get in trouble for posting about it, once H finds out. And he will find out, because he googles his film titles on a regular basis, to see what’s happening with them. That’s how he found out that one of them had been screened in places as far-flung as Syracuse and Denver and Weeneebeg, Canada.

I’m going to risk his wrath because I’m proud of him. He screened a film at the MOMA!

How to Set a House on Fire is H’s adaptation of a short story by writer Stace Budzko. H decided to go with an adaptation for this film because he wanted to focus on the cinematography, which is his particular passion. It was filmed mostly by lantern-light, around the time of the summer equinox (which Chris would translate as “very late at night” ’cause he helped H on this film and it took a lot of waiting for it to get dark enough.)

If you want to take a look at the film, here it is:

Fast Tube by Casper

When H decided to go to school last year as a high school junior, I felt somewhat like a failure as a homeschooler. It wasn’t a choice his homeschooling friends had made, and I wondered if I could have done something to prevent it. But one of my firmest homeschooling beliefs is that learning should be directed by the kids. It must be meaningful to them. If H wanted to go to school–and he was 16 and old enough to make such a decision–then, ultimately, one of the most homeschoolish things I could do was support his decision.

And despite so many things that I don’t like about school–how H gets little say in his education, that there’s so much busy-work, that his schoolwork is directed from the outside rather than being fueled from within–I can reconcile myself with it because H is happy. And because he has his filmmaking.

In H’s filmmaking life, he’s still working like a homeschooler. He’s directing (literally and figuratively) what he wants. He’s pushing himself in new ways constantly. He’s making things happen through the sheer force of his vision and his dedication. (I would love to link the program that’s helping H with all of this. But he forbade me to link to it, not wanting Mama to show up on blog searches, which I probably will in this case anyway. If you’re curious about the program, ask me!)

There’s more than one way to set a house on fire. You could start with a match. Or you could make sure the inhabitants of that house are rubbing their creativity and inspiration together often enough to set things smoldering. And then you’ll have a different sort of fire.

“i’m still playing with that”

August 27, 2009 in creativity, wondering | 27 comments

Mr. T leaves crazy little play tableaus all over the house. Constantly. He immerses himself in an imaginary landscape and lingers there, and then eventually moves to another room, another game before I’ve noticed what’s happened.

There are Zoob creations on the couch. Zoob creations beside The Beatles.

The other day when I sat in my writing chair and tried to put my feet on the footrest, I discovered this:

There’s a Crazy Bone parade on top of the piano.

Not to mention the constant explosion of pens and pencils across the kitchen table. Sometimes he uses them as art supplies. Sometimes they’re yet more characters in his games.

Does he clean up one “mess” before starting another? Why, of course not!

This drives Chris absolutely crazy. He’s one of those rare husbands who is neater than his wife. (Which is wonderful in many ways–the man knows how to wield a vacuum–but it can also make me feel like I’m a slob. Which I don’t think I am. Usually.)

I understand the need to help Mr. T take responsibility and learn to clean up after himself. But I’m a sucker for creative messes. The “I’m still playing with that” excuse works on me every time. Because he really does flit back and forth between his games. I’m always willing to let an imaginary world live on a little longer, at the risk of a cluttered living room.

I don’t do well with enforcing the old rule: You have to clean up one mess before you start another.

Plus, I’m home with Mr. T all day. I appreciate the fact that I have a kid who is able to entertain himself for hours–even if it means that I can’t walk through the upstairs hallway.

So I struggle with knowing when to insist on clean-up, and when to let the clutter lie. Yes, I want Mr. T to learn to clean up after himself. Yes, I want a neat house. Yes, I want to keep my husband sane.

But I also understand that when your kid snaps together a bunch of Zoobs and forms something he calls A Galaxy of Wonder, it’s, well, wondrous.

letter to a sweater

July 21, 2009 in creativity, makin' stuff | 19 comments

Dearest,

We’ve been through so much, you and I.

Do you remember when I first laid eyes on you, three years ago? In that Rebecca magazine at the yarn shop? I swooned over the fuzzy mohair-ness of you, and that modernish lace pattern of yours, and your lightness, your length. I fell so hard that I wrote a love story about it, and read it on a podcast.

But I wasn’t ready to commit. I was a beginner, and you were so intense. Just your name scared me: Coat with Lace Pattern. Not just the plainspoken German practicality of it, but the presence of both coat and lace in one name. Clearly you would be no small fling.

But what’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

It took me two years to feel confident enough to take you on. Finally, last September I gathered up ten balls of Sublime kid mohair at the yarn shop and embraced you right there.

It was so exciting in the beginning. All that experimentation, remember? Needles and swatches. You swept me off my feet.

And we had such passion early on. We were together constantly. Your sleeves flew off my needles like a spin around the dance floor. Soon I was climbing up your back, loving your lace. Then suddenly, sometime in November, something changed. All that lace. All those purl rows. I got bored. I got distracted.

So I dallied. There was the Pickle Hat in December, and the Toasty mitts in January. But you must believe that they meant nothing to me. Nothing. I never even took a photo of Toasty and me together for Ravelry.

By Valentine’s Day we were back together, and had that little second honeymoon up in the mountains. I finished your back and cast on for your fronts. That excitement carried us through for a while.

But we had issues. I won’t say we aren’t compatible, but I guess I need a little more from a sweater. You know I’m not a purl kind of girl. Too much of that and my eyes start wandering to other projects. And here I was, having to purl back every other row, all the way up your two…long…fronts. Some weeks we didn’t get together at all. Then there were those two weeks of constant bickering in April. I kept tinking back on your same lace row, again and again and again, and we still couldn’t get it right.

I’m sure all my friends at the park got tired of seeing us together week after week. Me so despondent, you so–unchanged.

But spring fever hit and we slowly became inseparable once again. You started to change in beguiling ways. You decreased! You lost your lace pattern! There was grafting and i-cording and even seaming was new and thrilling. And finally you were finished! We batted our eyelashes at each other and fell in love all over again.

We had those romantic photos taken in the garden. You were all over me.

You’re everything I dreamed you’d be. You’re delicate and airy and dramatic. But despite that halo, you’re hot stuff. (What more could I expect, given your mohair.) You’re longer than I thought you’d be, but, well, let’s not go there.

And that little brown cardigan you may have seen me messing around with lately? Don’t worry. She’s short. And simple.

There will never be another sweater like you.

eric carle art

May 31, 2009 in creativity, homeschooling, makin' stuff | 8 comments

A few weeks back, Mr. T and I watched a video from the library called Eric Carle: Picture Writer. It’s a movie I watched years ago with H and Lulu, about Eric Carle’s art, and his stories about how he became an artist. It’s a quiet, sweet film. One of my favorite parts is the story of his kindergarten teacher, and how she saw that he had a gift for art, and urged his parents to nurture it. Carle believes it’s what led him to become the artist he is.

The other fascinating part of the film is watching Carle in his studio, painting the tissue papers that he uses to make the collaged art of his picture books. It’s so fun to watch him, and then to study his books, and see how he uses those papers. At the end of the film, Mr. T said definitively, “I want to do that.”

So he did. I pulled out paints and papers and brushes, and a few other tools like toothbrushes and combs for making texture in the paint. I offered Mr. T plain white paper; I was afraid tissue paper might be too delicate.

And oh boy, did he go to town.

It wasn’t long before his sister had joined him at the table. I love how having a younger sibling gives an older one “permission” to do something that might seem to babyish to do on his or her own.

When H and Lulu watched the Carle film years ago, they made Carle-style papers too, and then used them to illustrate a book about the sea called, “Over by the Seashore”. It followed the pattern of the old folksong, “Over in the Meadow,” and I helped them make up verses about sea creatures. This time, as Lulu and Mr. T worked, they came up with a grand scheme of writing a new book together called, “Over in the Jungle”, which would be based on jungle creatures from India.

They made papers to use for monkeys, tigers, elephants. They wrote the first three verses together.

They worked at it for two mornings straight, and Mr. T made more papers on a third.

And then the project died. Lulu lost interest. Mr. T decided that he didn’t want to use the papers to make animals. He just wanted to make more papers.

I’ll admit it: I had a hard time with this. They’d spent days making the papers, and I hated to see them give up before making something with them. I tried to encourage Mr. T to use the papers to make something: a galaxy scene, some imaginary creature. I pushed too hard and he got mad. It was making the papers that he’d originally wanted to do. That was what captivated him; that was what he’d enjoyed.

So I let it go. We now have a nice collection of art papers for some future project–maybe. Then again, if making the papers gave two kids born six years apart a few mornings of shared joy, I suppose I should be satisfied.

And you know what? I am.

pondering mothering on mother’s day

May 11, 2009 in celebrations and traditions, creativity | 3 comments

So, did you have a galactic Mother’s Day?

I sure did. This card, made for me by Mr. T, assured it.

His card reminded me that despite all my lacks and failings as a mother–if I’ve nagged too much, and complained too much and forgot to have fun on the weekends because cleaning the house seemed more important than visiting a beach; if I’ve done any number of terrible things the kids might come up with if I had the courage to ask–I’ve done one thing right.

I’ve helped them to become creative people.

H is drawing storyboards and scouting locations for his next film. He found out that he was accepted into a wonderful month-long filmmaking program this summer, at CalArts in Southern California. Chris and I are thrilled for him.

Lulu was feeling uncreative last week. No project appealed to her. Then she saw the art Mr. T was working on: a space scene, complete with spatter-painted stars. And she sat down and came up with this mix of art and poetry.

She’s been working on a monologue and a song for a musical audition, which happens tomorrow. (I think she has the dancing part of the audition in the bag!) My fingers are crossed as far over as they’ll go.

And Mr. T is making galactic Mother’s Day cards. And spending a lot of time living in his own imaginary world.

One of the main reasons I wanted to homeschool the kids was to help them develop and hold on to their creativity. I think all of us are born creative–but it’s easy to lose as we grow up. It makes me so happy to see that my kids are not only holding on to their creativity–they’re letting it guide their lives.

So I’ve done one thing right. Now I just have to remember to nag less. And have fun more.

I hope you all had a wonderful Mother’s Day. Galactic, even.

My mom and me, yesterday. She gave me the confidence to be a creative person. But mostly she taught me how to love.

an audacious idea

April 26, 2009 in creativity, wondering, writing | 15 comments

So I have this crazy idea. I hesitate to write about it here for fear of jinxing it. But then I thought about my little essayist project, and how posting about it here each month has been such good incentive for me. I don’t think I would have kept up with reading these essayists if I hadn’t made the commitment on the blog. (And may I wax rhapsodic about Joan Didion once again? Have you read The Year of Magical Thinking? Wow.)

So this idea came suddenly, while I was running on a Saturday morning. It was the collision of a handful of things that had been simmering in my mind.

The first was the fact that I’d been feeling down after receiving a couple more rejections to my essays. I’ve written about rejection before. Part of the trouble is that I’m writing what some people laughingly call creative nonfiction, some call literary nonfiction. Basically I’m writing personal essays about parenting which are too long and too writerly to find a home in mainstream magazines. Trouble is, you can count the markets for this type of writing on one hand. So the competition is devilish, and I keep coming this close to getting something published. (One editor likes my essay but the senior editor doesn’t, blah, blah, blah.) Anyway, I have three lovingly crafted essays that represent about two years of my writing life sitting on my computer doing nothing. Which stirred up a little cloud of self-pity. Poor me.

At the time of this pity-fest, I was also writing a proposal for a workshop I’d like to give at my local homeschool conference this summer. I gave a workshop on helping parents facilitate writing workshops last year, and I enjoyed it, so in addition to proposing that workshop again, I toyed around with the idea for a new one and came up with something called Nurturing Young Writers.

And guess where the idea for this workshop came from? Why from you, my wonderful handful of regular readers! I started thinking about a few posts I wrote here, on invented spelling and taking dictation. And I thought about all the insightful comments you left me, and it occurred to me that people are interested in small aspects of writing like this.

I have a lot of ideas about writing. Simple ideas which I sort of take for granted. Ideas which maybe germinated when I was a teacher, but really came to life when I started working with my kids and their original, opinionated minds. But I think what’s influenced my thinking most has been my own quest to try to learn to write. That sometimes pathetic, multi-year project which I refer to as homeschooling my MFA. I write and I think about writing and the writing process an awful lot. And I suppose that’s worked its way into the time I spend with my kids.

I think there are many ways you can nurture writing in kids–oftentimes without them having to write at all. There’s dictation, which I’ve been pondering since that post, and I’m coming to believe is an even more powerful tool than I’d originally considered. There are conversations about writing that can happen organically as you and your kids read together, or listen to audiobooks. There are lots of little ideas like this, which cumulatively can help form a young writer–without curriculum, without assignments, without writing prompts.

And as I ran that Saturday morning, all these thoughts swirled together in the pot of vegetarian soup that is my brain and here’s the audacious idea that came to the surface: There might be a book here.

I know, I know, what do I know about writing a book? I can’t even get my danged essays published! And I’ve never been interested in writing how-to stuff anyway. How-to writing is dry. It’s boring. And how can I presume to tell someone how to do something, when I’m constantly discovering new ideas myself?

But I kept running, kept thinking. What if I presented a collection of ideas as just that: ideas? Not a curriculum, not a method. Just a collection of options which might get a parent thinking, which might work for a particular kid.

And then–and here was the big epiphany moment for me–I started thinking about my favorite books on writing. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, of course. And Poemcrazy, by Susan Wooldridge. And all of Ralph Fletcher’s books, especially the ones written for kids about the craft of writing. All of those books actually read less like how-to books, and more like collections of personal essays. They not only offer fantastic ideas about writing, they model good writing.

This was when my simmering brain started boiling over.

What if, instead of using my writing time to write unpublishable essays, I spent that time writing personal essays that might actually help someone?

Last year for my birthday, my parents gave me a lovely journal from Levenger, and it’s been sitting around waiting for the right project. It’s called a Circa journal, and what’s cool about it is that the pages are removable. You can pull them out, and move them around. It’s also nice and big, and it opens flat. So right after my run I started jotting down notes. I made a separate page for each “chapter” that had already come to mind, knowing I could just jot down ideas as they come, adding pages as necessary.

So yes, I think it would be a little audacious to say that I’m writing a book. But I’m excited about the notion, and at least I’m busy at work on a new essay. I worked on it four mornings last week and one evening, which felt great. That kept the work alive in my mind all day, and I jotted down some notes as I did other things–which is the only way to make progress with a piece of writing.

I worry about trying to balance a project like this with blogging. Writing posts and responding to other blogs can get time-consuming, as many of you know. On the other hand, I think my blog-writing led directly to this project, so I don’t want to give it up! But there may be more posts here about writing–both mine and the kids’. And more posts about the creative process, which is something I hope to make more time for in my days. A past interview on the Writers on Writing podcast with “creativity coach” Eric Maisel was inspiring…

Here’s hoping that this post serves as a commitment rather than a curse.

we love ed

April 1, 2009 in books, creativity | 11 comments

Lately, Mr. T has been spending a lot of time with Ed Emberley.

I have my own fond memories from the 70’s of checking out armloads of Ed Emberley books from the bookmobile that parked near the tennis courts, in the suburban tract where I lived. I never thought of myself as able to draw, but with Ed’s simple step-by-steps, I could. My favorite was Make A World–all those tiny, tiny things, which I put together into great scenes.

Mr. T has no issues with his drawing abilities; still he’s having a fabulous time with Emberley’s Drawing Book of Faces. He’s been working on a series of faces within a graph paper grid.

Check out that pencil grip! Check out those filthy fingernails!

He’s having as much fun drawing the faces as he’s having trying to read the character’s alliterative names. Conceited Conroy. Puzzled Polly. Black Eye Bob. His reading skills are just blooming these days, and it’s fun to hear him trying to figure out those names as he draws. His favorite is Monster Melvin.

Writing this post, I came across a link to Ed Emberley’s own site. Unfortunately, I can’t get it to run with the Flash Player I have, but the little flickers I could see of it look very cool. Somehow I was surprised to see that Ed is still alive. It seemed that someone who was writing books that were such a big part of my childhood would be gone by now.

Viva Ed Emberley!

highlights from a history fair

March 23, 2009 in creativity, homeschooling, makin' stuff | 7 comments

Our homeschooling group hosts a history fair every year and I love it.

I love talking to kids who are excited with what they’re learning about.

I love seeing the handiwork of little hands.

(Those are Mr. T’s hands and planets.)

A collection of Native American dwellings.

I love seeing the creativity of their displays.

This was a display on the history of spices. Look at how the seven-year-old creator worked in her love of fabric!

I love seeing kids chat with each other about what they’ve learned.

They had their Trip Through Time “passports” stamped or stickered at each exhibit.

I love seeing how proud they are of their work.

This shot gives a little perspective to the photos of Lulu’s kitchen from my last post.

And I absolutely love seeing thirteen-year-old boys try on tap shoes at a friend’s “History of Tap Dancing” display.

It was a wonderful day.

Postscript to my fabulous regular readers: The last two weeks have been ridiculously busy. Hence, few posts here, and even fewer visits to, and comments on your blogs. I’ll be catching up and making the rounds this week–I miss you.

the scribe and the storyteller

March 10, 2009 in creativity, homeschooling, learning, writing | 15 comments

One of Mr. T’s favorite things to do is to tell me a story, and have me write it down. Actually, he’s been adding on to the same story for months now–Scritch and Scratch, about a boy and a girl turned into wolves who have many adventures in space.

Yesterday he was jumping out of his skin when he realized that he had a new story to begin, about a boy named Todding Toddington and his adventures in an alternate world, which other people can’t see. It’s part of what he’s calling The Series of Wonders. (And you know his Wonder Farm mama is lapping that up.)

Mr. T would be happy if I’d take his story dictation every day–even several times a day. But I don’t. It’s time-consuming. And it’s tedious. But I try to get to it a couple of times a week because it brings him such joy. And, I realize, he learns an awful lot about writing in the process.

As prone as I am to making teachable moments of every gosh-darned thing, I try not to lapse into teaching mode when I take down his stories. I don’t say in my Dana-Carvey-as-The-Church-Lady voice, See how I start each sentence with a capital? or Did you notice how I spelled this word? Nope, I just write down what he tells me, and ask for clarification when I’m honestly curious about something.

Still, he’s learning so very much every time we do this. Yesterday I tried to take note of what he was picking up:

He knows that sentences end with punctuation, because whenever he continues a sentence that I thought he’d finished, he sees me erase the punctuation and add it later.
He knows that exciting sentences end with exclamation marks.
He knows how to use quotation marks because he sees me do this whenever one of his characters talks. He’s also learned how to add he said or she exclaimed in the most dramatic places in the dialogue. I assume he’s picked this up from being read to, and from listening to audio books.
He knows that titles are centered on the page and capitalized. He’s even noticed that minor words like of and the don’t get capitalized.
He knows about starting new paragraphs when the story shifts gears. Often he’ll tell me to “start down here now” when he’s ready to move on in the piece. Paragraphing is something that’s often hard for much older kids to grasp; Mr. T has intuited it by watching where I add paragraphs in his stories. Often I’ll simply ask him, “Do you think we should start a new paragraph now? Is the scene changing?”
In his story yesterday, Todding Toddington found a piece of paper with a poem on it. As I wrote down his poem, Mr. T said, “Shouldn’t it be slantways ’cause it’s a poem?” I realized he meant that part should be written in italics; I’m not even sure where he picked that up. So I erased it and wrote it in cursive.
In his story one character said to another, “Are you a windquist?” I asked Mr. T what a windquist was, and I pointed out that his reader might wonder. So he said, “This is the narrator talking now,” and he defined a windquist. I said, “I’ll make a new paragraph, since we’re switching to the narrator.”
He narrated the sentence, “At that second a giant thing of wind blew into the room.” I’m all for writing down lines as he says them, but if he uses vague words like thing, I’ll often check to see if he can come up with a better one. He struggled with finding the right word, so I became his thesaurus and suggested a few: blast, gust. Yes! Gust was just what he wanted.

My hand and my attention usually peter out after two pages or so. It would be easier to type his dictation into the computer, but I don’t think it would allow him to notice what I’m writing quite as well. Watching me erase and rewrite as we go seems to be a tangible learning experience for him. And allowing him to watch me write seems like a natural bridge to his writing himself eventually.

I love the thought that my kids have never needed grammar instruction; they’ve picked up the tools of writing by loving to write. Even if it meant that, for a long time, I was the one doing the physical writing.

As I was writing this post early this morning, Mr. T woke up. His first words to me: “What are we doing today? Will you write my story?”

10,000 hours

January 23, 2009 in creativity, homeschooling, learning | 2 comments

A few weeks ago on Camp Creek –my new favorite blog about project-based homeschooling and authentic art!–Lori wrote an interesting post after reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers: The Story of Success. In the book, apparently, Gladwell states that to become excellent at something, you need to spend about 10,000 hours at it.

In her post, Lori considered how homeschooling might play into that theory. If you haven’t already, go read what she wrote instead of a poor summary from me.

Now, here’s something exciting which might seem completely unrelated: right now my 16-year-old is at the Sundance Film Festival for six days. I couldn’t be more thrilled for him.

And I think that fact has an awful lot to do with Gladwell’s 10,000 hours, and Lori’s thoughts on homeschooling.

But to tie that all together, I’ll have to tell you a little story. Or a long story. (I have to be careful: my oldest doesn’t like me writing about him here. But, I figure, I took his name off the blog. And I just want to share a little about his path; I’ll try not to get too personal. Plus, the kid’s at Sundance–my blog is surely the last thing on his mind.)

Anyway, a couple of years ago, in November 2006, H and I had one of those explosive homeschooling days that made it clear things weren’t working. At that point, he was what a high school would consider a freshman. And since he’d started “high school”, things had changed with our homeschooling. I’d changed things with our homeschooling.

Suddenly, I’d realized that if H planned to go to college, he would need a transcript, and for the first time in our homeschooling lives we needed to account for how he was spending his time. I wanted him to continue as we always had: “covering” less, but letting his learning be more in-depth. Having him choose projects to explore interesting topics, rather than skimming through endless textbooks.

But that transcript kept hovering over my shoulder, and I was suddenly pushing him to cover more. Do it in an interesting way, of course, but cover more…

Well, there isn’t enough time in the day to learn both ways, and H was justified when he told me in no uncertain terms, “I can’t do all this!”

We spent a lot of time talking about what we should do. I could see that learning had become less exciting for him, and it saddened me. But neither of us wanted to completely ignore the fact that eventually colleges would be interested in what he’d done for four years.

We didn’t figure everything out that day, but we decided that he would change his focus. He would “cover” some topics that interested him less more quickly–science, math–and leave time to explore the areas that he liked in more depth–English, history.

And filmmaking.

H had started using the family camcorder to film movies with his friends and siblings that summer. He’d taught himself how to edit with iMovie. It amazed me to see how immersed he became when he was editing a film, how he could spend hours at it, completely focused.

I wanted him to bring that excitement about learning back to his homeschooling. Together, H and I designed a “class” that we could add to his transcript: Introduction to Filmmaking.

He started with Hitchcock, because back when I was in college, I decided that one ought not to graduate from UCLA without taking a film class, and Hitchcock was the spring quarter offering. So H watched one Hitchcock film after another and read my text from the class: a fantastic set of film-by-film interviews between Hitchcock and Francois Truffaut.

Hitchcock turned out to be a fortuitous introduction, I think. His careful attention to camera angles and shots had an effect on H’s own very visual style.

He read Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez and watched his early films with the director’s commentary. He learned a lot about making films as a beginner, with little money.

While studying WWII, he filmed and edited an extended interview with a family member who’d served there.

I helped H load up the Netflix queue. Classic films, newer films, he watched them all. He wrote a few papers. And he spent a lot of time behind our camera and with our computer editing program.

A year or so before, a friend in my homeschooling group had forwarded a link to a free (!) filmmaking program in our city, for kids 15 and up. I’d saved that link–because squirreling away possibilities for our kids is what homeschooling moms do best. When he turned 15, H started attending the program, and it’s been an amazing opportunity for him. He’s been using professional-quality cameras and editing programs for over a year now. He’s made three short films of his own, and done collaborative work on others. He attended a program on an Indian reservation outside Seattle, in which teams of kids had 36 hours to film and edit an adapted scene from one of Native American writer Sherman Alexie’s books. The films were screened at the Seattle International Film Festival, and Sherman Alexie was there.

And now they’re at Sundance.

But back to Lori’s post. What’s interesting is that H decided to go to high school this year as a junior, for his own reasons which I won’t go into here. It’s been a lot of work–I’m not sure he understood entirely what he was getting himself into. But what’s wonderful is that he took on school with the understanding that filmmaking wouldn’t lose its priority in his life. As a homeschooler, H had two years to explore film at his own pace, to let it seep into him and become part of him. And there’s no way he’s going to let a set of required classes stop him from continuing that.

I don’t think he’s come close to his 10,000 hours yet, but they’re clicking by pretty quickly. And I’m so grateful that homeschooling helped him get that clock going.

I love it when they’re bored

January 21, 2009 in creativity, from the kitchen, makin' stuff | 15 comments

Because that’s just when an older sister will say to her younger brother, “Do you want to make a fairy feast?”

And they’ll go into the garden to gather supplies. She’ll get ingredients from the kitchen; he’ll gather fairies and animals from his room.

They’ll make a salad, a cake and a tiny tart. They’ll even bake a pizza and a wee baguette.

All the animals and fairies and gnomes will find a place. Well, not all of them. There will be some bickering about who should be invited, and who is the most appropriate. The brother will have to do some cajoling to allow the teddy bear a spot.

And after nearly two hours of efforts, the spread will be divine, enough to impress even a Martha Stewart fairy.

Of course, the brother might have had a better time building a fortress for the fairies, gnomes and their animal friends. He probably would have preferred to have them jump off trees and chase each other under table legs rather than arrange them oh, so elegantly.

But he did like baking those breads and that baguette.

And really, when your 13-year-old sister is bored and offers to play with you for the afternoon?

You go with it.

when your kid wants almost nothing for Christmas

January 8, 2009 in creativity, makin' stuff | 6 comments

Well, Mr. T did want a few things. He wanted a copy of Wall-E, his favorite-ist movie ever—which he got from his grandparents. And he wanted a science kit.

“I don’t want any toys,” he told me. “I have too many toys and I don’t even play with them all.”

It’s true. He doesn’t play much with toys, although he plays all day long. It’s interesting: when he plays, he becomes immersed in his imaginary world—toys and things are mere props, of secondary importance. He might whiz a plastic knight around the family room; he might just as likely whiz around a bent paperclip or some Monopoly money. The play isn’t about the thing in his hand; it’s about the world in his mind.

H and Lulu always had vibrant imaginations. Still, if I’m remembering right, it seems like their play was more grounded in what they played with. H was a great builder of Legos, and he played at them for hours. There was always a new set he wanted, come Christmas or birthdays. Lulu had her dolls, her dress-up clothes, her toy kitchen. (Gender-predictable, I know, but that’s what she liked.) And she was always happy to get more.

But as much as you’ve got to love a kid who doesn’t covet more stuff, it did put me in a quandary. Because Mr. T’s seven, and when you’re seven there ought to be something to play with on Christmas morning. And a science kit doesn’t quite make for instantaneous fun.

I thought and I thought. Then I remembered his big bag of clay wads. It’s a mess of mixed-up colors, yet he pulls it out again and again and plays at the kitchen table. He has few discarded Pokemon figures from H and they go into the clay and under the clay and propel out from the clay, with many sound effects. Mr. T cuts the clay into bits with his little-kid scissors, attaches the bits to the Pokemon guys, and, of course, inadvertently scatters them across the kitchen floor.

The clay, I thought! It’s hard and it’s old and it’s been forever since I made Mr. T a batch of play dough. And those old Pokemon figures! A few weeks before, Mr. T and I had brought some of those toys he doesn’t play with to the local consignment shop. Before we left, Mr. T had chosen, for a dollar, a bag of four tiny Digimon figures. Now Mr. T knows nothing about Digimon, but the figures were small and wacky-looking and he lost himself in them for the rest of the day.

Suddenly I knew just what Mr. T needed for Christmas.

I rustled up a set of thirty little Digimon figures. I made a big double batch of play dough. At Thanksgiving, my teacher friend Janet had mentioned the wondrous tip of kneading unsweetened Kool-Aid powder into homemade play dough. Not only did that make the dough into Mr. T’s favorite colors of orange and pink, it also made it smell like yummy, totally fake, Kool-Aidy oranges and cherries. I pulled out a giant plastic canister that I’ve been saving for years from who-knows-what-anymore and built a big pink and orange mountain inside. Then I placed the Digimon figures in their new fruity world.

And did Mr. T like it? Why yes he did, if playing with it most every day since Christmas counts for anything. Which means that I now have Digimon figures perpetually scattered across my kitchen table, and bits of orange and pink play dough squished into my floor.

But I also have the satisfaction of knowing that I came up with something for the kid who wanted almost nothing.

start as you mean to go on

January 3, 2009 in creativity, writing | 5 comments

I learned that phrase from cast on, one of my favorite knitting podcasts. It was the title of Brenda’s new year’s episode last year, which was a good one–give it a listen. Brenda explained that the phrase is common in Britain. It’s such a good little set of words to keep in mind if you make new year’s resolutions.

I’ve got a few. I always do. Not that it means anything will come of them, but it’s exciting to write a few down and make an attempt at change.

I thought twice about sharing my resolutions here. They’re personal, after all. But I like hearing other people’s resolutions, so why not? Maybe making them public will make me more likely to stick to them.

This isn’t all of them, but here are my creative resolutions for 2009:

* Use my morning “writing time” to actually write, at least three days a week. As much as I love blogging, and following blogs and commenting on blogs, I’m afraid those activities have begun to usurp my “real” writing, which worries me. The blogging will have to shoehorn its way into some other time of day. (You know, all that other free time that I have as a homeschooling mother of three.)

* Read and study an essayist each month this year. Ooh, I’m excited about this one, which is only proof of my eggheadedness. (In junior high, a kid named Raul called me an egghead, and I’ve never forgotten it. He was right, of course.) Actually, I’m so excited that I’ve decided to make a blog project of it–My Year of Excellent Essayists. I’ll lay out my plans in another post soon, for any interested eggheads out there.

* Get more of my work published. I’ve got a few things festering in slushpiles already, but I vow to get out more.

*Knit more often. Even if it’s just ten minutes some days. ‘Cause I started a lace sweater coat in September and the end is nowhere in sight. What was I thinking?

* Improve my photography skills. I have a long way to go, but I’ve gotten so much inspiration from other bloggers out there. Here are a few more with photographs that make me sigh: maine momma. cloth.paper.string. abbytryagain.

So I’m starting as I mean to go on–and posting on a Saturday afternoon instead of during my Monday writing time. Now I only have twelve months of keeping this up!

Care to share any of your resolutions? I’d love to hear them.

the elves have been busy

December 23, 2008 in celebrations and traditions, creativity, makin' stuff | 3 comments

Glittering up cones and pods.

Stitching up baby hats for Mama to Mama.

Bashing candy canes to sprinkle on top of cookies for kid-friends. (Could there be a better job for a seven-year-old boy?)

Making sets of cocktail napkins for grown-up friends. These were fun. All the fabric-choosing delight of quilting, but much less effort. I got to use my new serger–which I bought with money earned from my first publication. One creative endeavor fueling another. I like that.

One of the elves has been extra busy in the past few weeks. That would be the Divine Miss L, who just finished the 12 Days of Nutcracker–another way of describing twelve days with four dress rehearsals and eleven Nutcracker performances. This year she moved up from “cute” roles–lambs, soldiers, mice–and put some mileage on her pointe shoes. She was a perfectly sassy Spanish Chocolate, and a graceful and lovely waltzing Flower. This besotted mama couldn’t take her eyes off her dancing Lulu.

I got lots of chances to watch, ’cause I co-chair food concessions for the shows. Which means about a zillion emails and calls to line up 80 bakers, and 50 concession shift workers. Plus stocking the kitchen and decorating, and working six 5-hour shifts. In the middle of December. On top of all the other holiday craziness.

But am I complaining? Why no, I gave that up weeks ago! And busy as the last few weeks have been, I loved getting to watch Lulu dance so often. And it’s always fun to sell hot chocolate and sweets to happy theater-goers. Especially the little girl who brought Joan Baez along to one matinee. (For some reason Chris and I used to love to sing the Tears for Fears’ song Shout, Joan Baez-style. I think we heard her sing it at an Amnesty International concert once upon a time and it cracked us up. We are easily entertained, you must understand. It was hard to look at the real Joan across the counter the other day without wanting to start in: Shout, shout, let it all out…)

Anyway, the elves still have much to do. So I’m signing off for now.

old friends

December 2, 2008 in celebrations and traditions, creativity | 8 comments

Our old friends Dave and Janet and their twin girls stayed with us over Thanksgiving. Dave and Chris have been buddies since high school (and I’ve known them both that long too, which is sort of a scary thought.) Dave and Janet got married the month before we did, back when we were in our early twenties and most of our friends didn’t have dates, much less marriage plans. We had our first babies within six months of each other–although they had two to our one. And when they moved to Portland, we followed them up there and for a year-and-a-half lived three doors down. We ate dinner together most Thursday nights. Those were the days.

Since then, we see each other every few years–in the last two years or so it’s been more often. And what great times we have.

The kids have gotten in the habit of filming a movie each time they’re together. I think they’ve done five now. It’s fantastic–instead of vegging out on Guitar Hero World Tour on the Wii, they’re coming up with plots, filming scenes, editing. This time, perhaps to keep Mr. T from being a bother, they gave him the lead role.

As James Bond.

They actually convinced a bartender at the Palace Hotel to take his order and serve him a fake martini on film. Shaken, not stirred, of course.

There was also a brotherly fight scene on the Golden Gate Bridge which may have slowed city-bound traffic temporarily.

And no, I’m not thrilled to see my seven-year-old swigging martinis, punching his brother and wielding a machine gun, but I guess he’s pretty much ruined anyway. And he does all those things with such style…

He and Dave got to play in an interactive art installation at the SF MOMA. And we posed in front of the Union Square Christmas tree like good tourists. (No fighting or machine guns involved.)

Dave and Janet are some of the most positive people I know. I always end up feeling inspired after spending time with them. Janet teaches at a wonderful private school in a farm-like setting outside of Portland, and I always get exciting homeschooling ideas based on what she’s doing in her classroom. The four of us love sharing recommendations for good books, recipes, vacation destinations, films. (This time they brought down King Corn. Fabulous!) And we love sharing bottles of wine and Zachary’s pizzas.

On Sunday morning before they left, I came downstairs at 6:30 and found Dave in the kitchen, filling up water bottles. He didn’t complain about having to be up at 6:00 a.m., or about the 10-hour-if-you-don’t-stop drive home, or at the fact that he was schlepping bags down our stairs and out into the morning cold. Instead he looked at me and smiled and said, “It’s beautiful out there today.”

It was just a typical line from him, but it made an impact on me, especially on the first morning of Advent. I’ll say more about that later this week.

Good friends are gifts. But friends who also inspire? They’re gifts with a ribbon on top.

pokemon revisited

November 25, 2008 in creativity, learning, my waldorf guilt | 5 comments

When H was six or seven (could it really have been nearly ten years ago?) he was obsessed with Pokemon. Obsessed. He studied the cards constantly, memorized them and then followed me around, asking questions like, “Did you know that Metapod has more hit points than Bulbasaur?” or “Did you know that Tentacruel’s ability is liquid ooze?” (These days when H complains about Mr. T nattering on, telling his imaginary stories, I remind him of his Pokemon days. I don’t think he quite believes that he actually talked like that.)

Of course, as a homeschooling mama I am nothing if not resourceful, so I capitalized on H’s obsession. I wrote down his Pokemon stories, helped him make Pokemon books, invented Pokemon word problems with him. By the time H finally moved on from that obsession to baseball cards over a year later, I was so tired of Pikachu and all his friends that I was happy to dismiss them from my brain forever.

So imagine my horror at our last homeschooling park day, when I saw Mr. T sitting with another seven-year-old and his collection of Pokemon cards, studying them for over an hour. Heaven help me, I thought, here we go again…

I was sure Mr. T would want to rush home and dig out his brother’s thick-as-the-Oxford-English-Dictionary binder of Pokemon cards. But no. Mr. T is not his brother. He doesn’t have a fascination with statistics, nor a mindset that borders on obsessive. He doesn’t even like to follow game rules. What intrigued him wasn’t the Pokemon game itself but the idea of a multitude of imaginary characters. Characters that can evolve into other characters. When I mentioned that H once made up his own Pokemon-style characters and cards, which he called Zamblasto cards, Mr. T’s eyes lit up like they’d been sparked by Pikachu’s thunderbolt tail.

He quickly spread himself and his supplies across the kitchen table and began drawing his own characters and their evolutions.

He made up abilities for them, and asked me to write them down. Check them out.

I especially like Surprising Scare in Dark Cave and Crack Open Balls of Power. Sort of like manga meets haiku.

One of my favorite parts of watching Mr. T draw is witnessing how it’s a process of animating his own imagination. Bringing it to life. He narrates the characters’ words as he draws, then has them interact, with lots of action and sound effects. Sometimes the scene gets so exciting that his very pencil comes to life, and starts zooming through the air, with plenty of “pshoo, pshoo” mouth noises.

Which all brings me back to the idea that sometimes my kids’ most banal interests can spark their best creativity. Which reminds me not to cave so quickly to my Waldorf guilt, and dismiss Bulbasaur, Mario and Luigi and all their compatriots. If that’s what fascinates my kids, so be it. Rather than pretending those characters don’t exist, I can realize their power in my kids’ minds–and I can put my arm around them and try to introduce them to my kids’ creative brains.

Even if it means I’m going to be regaled with hours and hours of stories about characters with abilities like Cannon Do-Dow, Honk-n-Zap and Haunted House Evil Liquid.

I love my new camera

November 19, 2008 in creativity | 2 comments

1. tyrolean stockings: sweden in my blood, 2. one of the last, 3. room with a view, 4.thirteen, 5. explaining his art, 6. cooking chinese dinner

kicking my waldorf guilt in the butt

November 2, 2008 in books, creativity, makin' stuff, my waldorf guilt | 4 comments

I bought this book to allay my Waldorf guilt.

I wanted to be sure I was doing crafty, Waldorf-y activities with my little guy before he gets too big. (And if you read my last post, you know how sentimental I am about that.)

See all those little tabs sticking out of the book? Those are my Best Intentions, displayed in purple Post-It.

There are so many lovely ideas in this book. (And also on SouleMama, Amanda’s blog, which is not news to anyone who follows crafty, mama-written blogs.) One of my favorites was the idea of embroidering your child’s art. I was enchanted with the idea of capturing some of Mr. T’s hand-drawn characters in embroidery.

But. My craft quota is down, so down these days. I used to sew Halloween costumes on occasion, and curtains, and even a quilt or two. But as the kids have gotten older, life has gotten busier. I do a fair amount of knitting because it’s portable and something one can do in five minutes here, five minutes there. But sewing? Embroidery? My needles are dusty.

But I was determined to get to this embroidery project, before I had a kid who was too old to want his art embroidered. (I didn’t want it to be like the Magic Cabin doll I always meant to sew for Lulu. I guess there are always grandchildren…)

But guess what? I did it! In time for Mr. T’s birthday even!

Those two creatures are Scritch and Scratch, two children-turned-wolves who popped out of Mr. T’s imagination and have been starring in his dictated stories for months now. They were simple creatures to embroider, made up as they are of mostly straight lines.

It was easy, really: I traced Mr. T’s drawing on tracing paper with an iron-on pencil. I transferred the image to a piece of linen and embroidered it. I reinforced the patch with Therm O Web HeatnBond (but not the portion that would get stitched to the shirt; apparently stitching through this product isn’t recommended.) I ironed the patch to the shirt, and then stitched it on with my sewing machine, using a satin stitch. (Which is nothing more than a very narrow zigzag.)

I was going for the look of those Boden applique Tee’s that Mr. T loves–but which I only buy on sale, since they’re so expensive. But this one was much more of a bargain: it didn’t cost much more than the $7.50 baseball Tee from Old Navy, plus a few evenings of secret embroidery in the rocking chair.

And this one means so much more–it’s Mr. T’s art brought to life, and Mama’s guilt brought to rest. For now, at least. And yes, when he looked in the gift bag on his birthday and saw his wolves, I got one big smile.

Take that, Waldorf guilt!

“can I do that thing again today?”

September 24, 2008 in books, creativity | 1 comment

That thing is mixing watercolor paints, Mr. T’s newest fascination. In the lid of the watercolor palette he blends paints, first one color and some water, then a bit of another color, then another. New shades develop with each step, and he studies them all. He quizzes us: “Do you think I made this color with purple and orange, or purple and green?” He did this for a half-hour at a time yesterday, several times; then he woke up this morning and was back at it, first thing.

He’s not mixing paints to paint with, mind you. I asked if he wanted a piece of paper to record the different shades he was developing. No, he did not. He just wants to swirl colors together and watch what happens.

Sometimes he gives his new shades fanciful names. I wish I’d written them down; now I can’t remember even one.

I’ve started reading the book I mentioned in my last post: Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay. It’s a book populated with people throughout history who’ve been enthralled with color, who’ve played with color. So I can read the book and then watch that same enthrallment in action, at my kitchen table. Which is rather delightful. (I remind myself of this as I wipe hands, arms, forehead, table, floor, chair, sink. Our kitchen is looking rather splattered.)

A quote, quoted from the book:

“What did I learn at art school? I learned that art is painting, not painted.” –Harvey Fierstein

I think Mr. T gets that.

atwitter: september

September 18, 2008 in atwitter, books, creativity, makin' stuff | 6 comments

A few things that have me all worked up right now:

Finished books. I finally got to this one. It’s the tale of Kingsolver’s family’s year-long experiment to grow as much of their own food as possible–and to eat locally-grown food when they couldn’t raise it themselves. Parts of the book preach to the choir if you already eat mostly organically, and you try to be a locavore. Still, their experiment was much more extensive than anything I could ever undertake, which made it an interesting read. And the writing itself often dazzles. This cheese queen especially loved the chapter on cheese-making: I’m inspired to try making mozzarella to go with our garden tomatoes.

The next book in the queue. I resisted this at the MOMA last week, which only forced me to hunt it down elsewhere when I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Doesn’t the subtitle–A Natural History of the Palette–thrill you? Maybe not. Maybe it sounds about as thrilling as an algebra textbook. But if you’re a color junkie like I am, it sounds like rainbow-colored crack. I hope I like it as much as I’m planning to.

My new planner. It’s the Moleskine 18-month planner and notebook, with weekly planning pages on the left, lined pages on the right. Moleskine touts it as the planner for both right and left-brained thinking, and that’s just what I love about it. My old planner was pretty much the Book of Guilt–full of things I had to do, ought to do, failed to do. This one gives offers just as much space for daydreaming, jotting, and ephemera-gluing. This week’s pages show my brainstorming for this blog entry, as well as a pathetic sketch of a romaine leaf from the garden, done in watercolor pencil. I’m trying to sketch nature with Mr. T–it’s not really my thing, but sometimes I’m surprised with what I come up with. (And I do love those watercolor pencils!)

Finished knitting. I’m really happy with this one. It’s Liesl, by Ysolda. It’s a fantastic pattern: quick-to-knit, and the complexity of the finished product belies the pattern’s simplicity. Also, Ysolda gives lots of options for customizing your cardigan. There’s more on my Ravelry page for you Ravelers out there.

The next project. The most exciting thing about finishing a knitting project–besides getting to wear it–is the thrill of the next one. I’m finally giving in to knitting this: the Coat with Lace Pattern from the Rebecca Special Mohair Issue. If you ever listened to my essay on the podcast Cast On, this is the pattern that tempted me into my knitting obsession. It’s taken me a few years to acquire the gall to believe I can take on a pattern with both lace and coat in its title.

Links. This one is an article about the benefits of daydreaming. If homeschooling has done nothing else for my kids, it’s certainly encouraged their daydreaming skills! They’re daydream masters, all three. (Although they may have inherited those tendencies from their mother.) Thanks to Melissa at Here in the Bonny Glen for the link.

What has you all atwitter?

queremos a frida

September 12, 2008 in creativity, learning, out and about | 2 comments

When I told Lulu to smile, she said, “No, I’m Frida” (who never smiled in her self-portraits.)

The other day, Lulu, Mr. T and I went to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the MOMA in San Francisco. If you’re local and you haven’t seen it, it closes on September 28, so vaya! It’s a big show, with room after room of Kahlo’s work. It’s stunning stuff, and I think all those self-portraits make it compelling for young viewers. (Although there are a handful of disturbing pieces of suicide, murder and miscarriage, with plenty of bloody veins. Mr. T. didn’t seem too bothered by those, although after glancing at one he said, “I don’t want to look at that anymore” and wisely moved on to the next.)

The show was crowded, even on a Tuesday morning. Mr. T couldn’t see the first painting through the crowd when we entered; when he finally got a glimpse and recognized it as the Luther Burbank portrait we’d seen in this book, he pulled on my hand and called, “Look, Mama, look, there it is!” which drew smiles from several nearby onlookers.

Then he floored me by looking at every single painting in the exhibit. Of course, he bounced and bobbed precariously over the wire that guarded each painting as he talked about what he saw. He recognized Diego Rivera in several paintings, and he talked about what different images might mean and also Kahlo’s use of color. (I can’t believe what he’s learned from that Creativity Express program.) Lulu floated around on her own, looking and sketching.

Mr. T spent a good three minutes studying Moses. This is a mural-like painting, supposedly based on Kahlo’s reading of Sigmund Freud. Mr. T spotted the guy with the thunderbolts in the upper right corner and said, “Hey, that’s Zeus.” Then he noticed Ra and said, “I think this painting is about gods.” We talked about the painting for another few minutes. Then he said, “I think I’m done here,” and proceeded to act as you would expect a six-year-old in a museum to act, whining about being bored and hungry and wanting to leave right now.

I’ve always been fascinated to watch my kids’ interests unfold. H was always captivated by sculpture and three-dimensional models; Lulu could sit through a ballet at two. Mr. T seems to have a thing for art, and I’m paying attention. He easily spends an hour each day drawing, a little here, a little there. He doesn’t care much about the product, or having people appreciate what he’s done. For him, it’s all about the process–when he draws he’s in his own world, quietly narrating what he puts to the page.

When he was five, he announced to us over pizza and a big glass of root beer, “Drawing is my life.” Maybe that’s a line to go in the bio at his first gallery show someday. Or maybe it will be something we’ll laugh about, when he turns out to be a car salesman or a stand-up comic.

Another good reason to visit modern art museums: the fantastic photo ops.

A couple of other good Frida books: Frida and Artists in their Time: Frida Kahlo (the second goes into nice depth for older kids.) I never did see the film Frida, but now I’m looking forward to it.