First Lasts

Today feels like the first big last thing here: I chaired my last "apartment meeting," to use Curious Girl's term for it. I suppose teaching my last class here, back in December, was truly the first big last, but at the time, I wasn't so closely tied to the leaving. Now, with our house for sale, I'm beginning to leave.

These are, with slight edits, the remarks I presented to my department today. I'm not sure why I'm putting them up here, but I've got leaving on my mind tonight, and thought I'd start writing some about moving. So here's a piece of getting ready to leave my current position:

Jane Jacobs, in the final chapter of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, notes

Cities happen to be problems in organized complexity, like the life sciences. They present situations in which a half-dozen or even several dozen quantities are all varying simultaneously and interacting in subtly interconnected ways (433)

and later,

Being human is itself difficult, and therefore all kinds of settlements (except dream cities) have problems. Big cities have difficulties in abundance, because they have people in abundance. But vital cities are not helpless to combat even the most difficult of problems. They are not passive victims of chains of circumstances….Vital cities have marvelous innate abilities for understanding, communicating, contriving and inventing what is required to combat their difficulties… Surplus wealth, productivity, the close-grained juxtaposition of talents that permit society to support [technological] advances…are themselves products of our organization into cities, and especially dense cities…dull, inert cities, it is true, do contain the seeds of their own destruction and little else. But lively, diverse, intense cities contain the seeds of their own regeneration, with energy enough to carry over for problems and needs outside themselves (447-448).

Jacobs speaks to me because I’ve spent a lot of time over the past 2 years pondering the size of our department, which we often construe to be a problem: we’re too big to socialize easily, too big to fit on one floor, too big to review each other quickly, too big to keep track of what goes on. Our size can be a problem—but reading Jacobs, I’m challenged to see the size a little differently. What if we considered our size to make us a dense city, in which our size becomes a virtue, in which the juxtaposition of programs and talents creates energy and sustainable life? City neighborhoods, after all, flourish only when there are safe public sidewalks, mixes of business and residences, mixes of day and evening activities, streets providing access to parks and varied schedules permitting good use of neighborhood resources.

I have cities on my mind today, as the Steering Committee’s draft strategic plan suggests that we shape a vision for ourselves of an urban English department, an English department located here, in this city. Whatever comes of the strategic planning process, I hope that we will be able to conceive of our large size as a strength. As I finish the performance review process, I’m struck by the variety of talents housed within our department. Our interests are broad, yet we are drawn together by an interest in how English functions in the world—as a literary pursuit, as a matter of personal expression, professional transactions, cinematic productions, in translation or interpretation. We’ll likely never rename ourselves the City of English, but if we could, it might inspire us to see a lively mixed use neighborhood reviving and connecting with those across its borders as a good metaphor for the work ahead.

Over the past two years, we’ve gotten organized. While I expect that some of our processes will come up for review and perhaps revision over the next year or two, the promotion and tenure processes and the performance review processes are logistically smooth. More importantly, we have good criteria for annual reviews, so our conversations about what we expect of each other have a common basis. There are good P&T matters to report: More associate professors are talking about promotion, and we have more models for promotion in our nontenured full time ranks.

So what’s left, now that things are organized: The Steering Committee has done wonderful work in jumpstarting a strategic planning process. The draft strategic plan before us today is just a beginning, and all of us on the Steering Committee fully expect there to be major changes in this document before it is adopted. A strategic plan that permits us to conceive of ourselves as a healthy, vibrant city, in which many different activities interact to create a vibrant core: that will be a document guiding the transition to the department as an organization that is truly at home with itself. I will be sorry not to be here when that plan is adopted—I would hope in late 2008—but I am pleased to be part of the group that has brought this planning process to this point.

This meeting marks the first of many lasts for me: it’s my last department meeting, although it seems too early in the year for that, and I struggled to decide what to say in my remarks today. While it may be my last department meeting, it’s not even close to my last day as chair, so it’s hardly time to say good bye. But it is time to say thank you: to the clerical staff, whose work enables each of us to connect more easily with the bureaucracies that govern our working lives, and whose willingness to reinvent job responsibilities has stretched our clerical talent and resources in amazing ways; to the Steering Committee, which has persevered through conflicting schedules to produce some very interesting work this year; to everyone who has said yes to my requests for help with one-off requests (scholarship committees, student awards days, just to name a few); to everyone who’s served on a standing committee; to everyone who’s been involved with public events for the department; the area coordinators and full professors, who have been generous with advice and perspectives when I needed help. You’ll notice I’m not naming names here, in part for fear of forgetting anyone, in part to save time. But I do want to thank two people in particular: J and R, who, in their different ways, have helped me be a better chair. They share an ability to look past how things are to see how they might be. J’s work on student affairs and R’s project-based work have helped me keep a focus on getting things done. My failings are my own, but I know I have fewer for having had two such wonderful associate chairs. So thanks to you two.

I’ve joked this year that in leaving unexpectedly early in term as chair, I instantly became the best chair the department would ever have, since surprise about my early resignation might obscure my shortcomings. Institutional memory is short around here—in a department and school that sometimes seems to forget more than it remembers, perhaps the best judge of success is not legacy but life in the moment. Almost every day I’ve come to work, I’ve walked into the building looking forward to the day ahead. Not just because I finally had windows—but because every day, I got to go to work, help someone solve some kind of problem, and have at least one kind of conversation about some dimension of our common mission to change the way people use language. I’m glad to have this job, and I look forward to my remaining months here. Thank you.

That's My Girl

To Every Problem, a Solution (even if impractical)
Standing in front of a bookshelf at her school, Curious Girl and I are waiting for her class to arrive. She has strep throat, but has had enough doses of antibiotics that I think it's safe enough to take her to school to go to the auditorium to see a cool guest artist perform. We're in front of the parent resources section, and there are lots of books about families. "I miss my dad," she says. "I really miss him." I squat down to be at her level. "I know you do, sweetheart." "Do you have his phone number?" she wonders. "No, I don't." "I really miss him." "Honey, I don't have his phone number. But you can draw him a picture any time you like, or write him letters, and I can help you save them in a special box. So if you ever do find out where he is, you could give them all to him. But I don't know where he is now." She shakes her head, looks discouraged. Then perks up. "Maybe you could ask someone! Someone else might know his phone number."

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How soon until she can read Marginal Utility? (or, more econ/math skills are on their way eventually, right?)
My parents sent Curious Girl a card today and included a five-dollar bill. CG literally jumped for joy. "My first real dollar!!!" She was giddy. "Is this real money? It looks like pretend money. Is it real?" The notion that it was a five dollar bill was somewhat confusing (those numbers in the corners are just details, apparently). "Someone wrote on it. Why did someone write on it?" We talk about the Secretary of the Treasury and the Treasurer. Then we talk about Abraham Lincoln and end up discussing John Wilkes Booth and what happened to Booth.

But the moment I knew would happen, because kids her age equate quantity with value and money is, after all, pretty abstract: she sat quietly, lookng at the money, and with some wonder, as though she'd just come up with the best. idea. ever, said, "Can I pay with this? Because then I would get even more money!"

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You don't need to be older to be the mature one
I need more sleep. This morning, CG spilled her yoghurt after I'd warned her that a) she needed to eat it because it had medicine in it and b) her arm was likely going to knock it over if she kept motioning as she was. I was right: it spilled, and I just snapped and got insta-angry. I was tired, a bit out of sorts over a work problem I'd carried home a bit last night, and I don't entirely understand it but I just got mad. I raised my voice, even, then realized what I was doing--irrationally overreacting--and said I needed a break and went upstairs to just sit and find my own calm. CG came upstairs, though, and that made me angry all over again. A few minutes later I calmed enough, and went down to her. "Mama, I didn't like the way you talked to me," she sobbed. "It hurt my feelings." I told her I was sorry, that I didn't like how I had talked, asked her what would help her feel better. "That you try not to do that again." She held out her arms for a big hug. We hugged. Things were better.

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Who Says She's an Only Child?
Right now, Curious Girl is snuggled up with a baby blanket, having a sleep over. She's on the little travel bed we used to use, on top of her bed. "I'm sleeping with all my baby sisters, and all our friends are sleeping on my big bed," she informed me. She actually fell asleep not on top of me for the first time. Siblings are a wonderful thing, and I didn't have to do a thing for the babies. What a life.

Random Update

• I am almost, but not quite, finished with the performance reviews in my department. My colleagues are unevenly invested in performance reviews: some don't seem to take any part of the process seriously (reporting or reviewing), some take it seriously and very personally, while others take it seriously with more distance. Reviewing serves some emotional purposes that I don't think we all fully understand--and certainly haven't articulated, in our very rational review standards and processes. I've been thinking quite a bit about the emotional purposes served by performance reviews, and how different people use them (or resist them) in career development. Although this is my last year doing performance reviews, I'd like to leave the department with a framework for considering how to help this task seem more useful across the board. I hope my practice of meeting with almost everyone individually is a step in that direction, but I want to explore how reviewing might be better targeted, so people feel better understood by the system.
• There's nothing like death and potty training to bring readers out to the comment boxes! Thanks so much for all the support and suggestions. It's been invaluable, and I can't thank you all enough.
  
• A potty update: I went back to reminding Curious Girl to go potty at regular intervals, usually around every 60-90 minutes, and at significant activity shifts (before a playdate, before leaving the house, upon coming home from school, before dinner). She's had only one accident in over a week now (and that was on a playdate at a friend's). She is also more likely to say "I have to go!" when I'm generally setting the structure in place. Things are good again.
• Anyone wondering whether a five or six year old child who is still having lots of accidents is normal should conclude that yes! it's very normal. Between the comments here, the private e-mail, and the comments on a yahoogroup I belong to, I've heard a lot of stories of older children who are still a little uneven on the potty front. Constipation is not always easy to detect, so there may be a medical component, but older kids with potty issues are not uncommon. I feel so relieved to hear that. I encourage--and always have encouraged--Curious Girl to be independent in some respects from a very early age (she started helping to clear her place at the table when she was probably two, for example). The week I spent convinced that The Authorities who think A Five Year Old Should be Indpendent with The Potty were correct was a miserable week. She needs a little reminding, and perhaps other kids do, too. Independence comes by many routes, and sometimes, teamwork with a parent is the best thing. We should talk more about such issues, as most of the mail I got from other parents in this situation expressed a bit of "but I thought my kid was the only one who..." Your kid isn't, and neither is mine. And she's splendid anyway.
• Curious Girl attended a Jane Brown adoption playshop this week. Jane is an amazing speaker--she did a three hour presentation for parents the night before, with no notes, very graceful and eloquent and engaging--and she's also great with kids. The two hour playshop gets adopted children and their siblings playing with each other, talking about adoption. They made little braided bracelets (one thread representing their first family, one representing themselves, one their current families) and learned how braided things are stronger than the threads alone. They did a play about a general adoption story, taking the roles of birth parents, prospective adoptive parents, children, siblings. They talked about how to respond to bullying and teasing and played different responses (and did scenes with puppets, too). They talked about how people are the same and different, about how many things are the same even if, say, skin color or eye folds are different.
• When we were watching a movie later, CG said, "the people in this movie are all the same color." Then she said, "but everyone is special. We all have eyes, and a heart inside." Tonight, she told me that she wished--in the part of the playshop where they made wishes about their birth families--that we knew more about J. and S., her birth parents. She cried a bit, told me we don't even have a picture, we don't know anything about them. "You know a little bit, but I don't know anything," she said. I told her that I would never, never, never have secrets about her first family, and that everything I know, she will know. I also said, "Sounds like you're feeling sad." So we talked about her sadness for a while, and I told her that I'm sad, too, that she doesn't know much about her first family. We ended up talking about the possibility of her having siblings in her first family, and she went to sleep planning to dream about living with her brothers and sisters and birth parents. She told me I could come in the dream, but that I couldn't live with them.
• "Pretend you're J., and you keeped me," she said, right before she fell asleep. This is a tricky situation. Politica and I are very careful never to speak for her birth parents. We have always (in age appropriate ways) tried to show CG the multiple reasons her first parents might not have been able to care for a baby when CG was born, always saying we don't know why. On a few other occasions CG has said "pretend I came from your belly," and I have always said "no, I can't. You grew inside J." but tonight, she said, for the first time, "Pretend you're J." I pretend to be any number of other people or things (in the course of today, I've pretended to be a cat, her big sister, her little sister, her baby, her student, her teacher, her ballet teacher). Can I pretend to be J.? My instinct was no, I can't, but I'm also aware that pretending is how she works things out. I don't want to block her attempts to work out adoption issues, especially now when she is clearly on the cusp of getting her mind around the fact that being adopted means that someone didn't keep her. She's coming to terms with the loss she suffered in a way she never has, despite the fact that she's long known the general facts of her story. Those facts are starting to be interpreted in a new way now.
• So I said, "What would J. say?" and she said, "I love you." I replied, "Go to bed, sweetheart," and she said, "remember, you're J." and I said, "Time for bed" (figuring mothers everywhere say that). She said again, "but you're J. Where's S.?" so I said, "I don't know." I was blurring the line about whether I was actually pretending to be J. or not, but the "I don't know" is factually true, and clearly not participating in what I believe her current J. and S. fantasy entails. She said, one last time, 'Tomorrow, remember, you're J." I'm not sure how this will play out tomorrow. Maybe I'll try to redirect her into play acting with some dolls or animals to play the parts. I really can't speak for J., and it's more important that she figure out what she thinks J. might say or do.
• I know this is important for her to do, and I'm so proud of her for being willing to name her feelings and talk about things. It is also heartbreaking to watch her hurt. I don't entirely know what I think about the primal wound, but I do know that CG has healing going on that wouldn't be needed if she hadn't been surrended by her first family and adopted by us. (She'd have likely had other problems she'd be working out, of course--I'm not idealizing alternate outcomes.) It's heartbreaking.
• Anyone want to buy a house? I should stop blogging and start cleaning. We have our first open house tomorrow, and too much clutter remains. Cross your fingers for buyers in a bad market.
  

Soggily, Regretfully, Right

This morning, when I went to pick up Curious Girl--who is now five-and-three-quarters-years-old-- at religious school, she was just coming out of the bathroom. Despite the convenient of three! toilets in our house, she didn't set foot in a bathroom again until bedtime (when, not surprisingly, her clothes were wet from an accident). Increasingly, when we are hanging around at home, she simply will not use the bathroom.

Potty training hasn't come easily to CG. She asked for underwear when she was two-and-a-half, but had tons of accidents all the time. By the time she was three, she got to the point of wearing underwear to school, but over the three-year-old preschool year, she was having more accidents at school, not less. That following summer, we did a timed voiding thing (we took her to the bathroom every 15 minutes for 3 days, then every 30 minutes for a few, then every hour), and also started using a laxative (b/c it turned out she was slightly constipated and that was likely interfering with her ability to tell when she had to go or not). All this helped, and over last year, she had accidents sometimes--much more often than any other kid in her class, it seemed--but things were better. I admit that when we decided to repeat pre-K, I joked that I'd learned how to make sure your kid was potty trained for kindergarten: repeat pre-K. These days, I"m not sure that's right.

Things have taken a turn for the worse in the past few months (when, yes, Politica has been off on a sabbatical adventure). Her teachers caught her twice squatting behind the bathroom door trying to poop there ("I want to be a baby and wear diapers," she told them), and there have been two incidents of, um, odd choices of location for some elimination in the house. Only two, granted, so it's not that common, but still. She is also having more accidents at home (not so much at school, squatting aside, but at home)--one day at Whole Paycheck, she just sat down and peed in the aisle. One happy, whodathunkwewerehaving issues day.

I set up a conference with her teachers to discuss strategy. "CG will respond really well to some behavior modification," one said. I didn't think so, but they were quite sure. Have a reward every day if she has no accident, and build to a bigger reward. They even gave me a lovely jar of iridescent jewels to use as the daily rewards. CG was excited by the prospect of a jewel, and she decided that a big cookie from Neighborhood Bakery would be the treat for a week of jewels. But the jewel alone just isn't working. She's happy to get one, but the bigger reaction is sadness when she doesn't. The idea behind the teachers' suggestion was to simply say "I know you can stay dry all day. This is the expectation. You can do it," and just stand back and let her take responsibility for it. So I don't use my timer to remind her (b/c then it's my responsibility). We urge her to listen to her body. I'm all about setting good clear expectations, but I didn't really think this plan would work. CG has never been motivated by the promise of later rewards--all our learning-to-eat rewards were pretty immediate. The ones we tried where she could bank points to earn a bigger prize later were just not motivating. But I said I'd try it.

The result: days when she simply doesn't use the toilet at all. Yesterday, she peed three times--twice in one outfit! I would think that would be very uncomfortable, to be wet, but she clearly doesn't seem to mind. At 4:00 today, I pointed out that I had gone to the bathroom three times since we'd been home, and she had gone none at all, and she assured me she was listening to her body and didn't have to go. Later, I told her to wash her hands before she could help me cook dinner. "Do I have to go to the bathroom?" she asked. I said she should go if she had to, that it was up to her to listen to her body. She didn't go. Some days, she mournfully says, "I'm never going to get my cookie." I always say, "I know you can do it." But when?

I am full of all kinds of emotions about this: partly, I"m wondering what I'm doing wrong when we're hanging around that is making her not want to go to the bathroom. Partly, I"m irritated at the stinky laundry this generates. Partly, I'm angry at the way she tells me she's checked her panties and they're dry, when they're not. Partly, I'm thinking I should just ignore it all. Partly, I think we need to find a child psychologist. Partly, I'm feeling good about how well I know my kid that I predicted that the jewel thing wouldn't work. Parly, I'm feeling like a lousy mother because I can't figure out what will motivate my kid to use the bathroom (thank you all for those kind comments on the last post, which I re-read this evening to help counter the lousy mother feelings). Partly, I think I should just set my timer and start telling her to try potty. She doesn't seem to hurt when she goes, or mind going, and she generally takes herself to the bathroom at school.

So I've been googling the subject, and have a call into a child pychologist friend to get her take on what I should do next, and I'll probably call our pediatrician in the morning. In the meantime, I thought I'd ask my blogging universe: what the heck should I do next?

Her Strengths

This post was inspired Magpie's post in response to the call from Parent Bloggers Network and Jenifer Fox for stories about children's strenghts.

Two nights ago, Curious Girl threw a fit in the middle of our (very short) violin practice. She started crying and just couldn't stop. Suddenly, she walked away from me, clearly looking for something. "I can't find it, Mama! My Feeling Box is gone and I can't find it!" She walked around in agitation. I spotted it on the other side of the room, and she ran to it, picked it up, and dumped all the little pieces of paper out. "I"m mad, Mama!"

The Feeling Box is a shoe box, covered with CG- drawn stickers of mad, angry, and sometimes happy faces. It has some crayons in it, and it used to have small pieces of paper for drawing on it. When CG gets angry, she'll get her box--or I'll get it for her--and she'll scribble a drawing to show her feelings. She likes to keep the pictures in the box, although two fits ago, she decided to rip them all up and scatter the pieces on the floor. So now it just has tiny papers in it, suitable for throwing. I love that she has created a box that helps her deal with feelings, and that she's turning to it on her own to process hard situations.

I love that CG can be so in touch with her feelings, that she's experimenting with being wildly out of control and self-regulating all at once. I love that she talks to me about her feelings, wanting me to know just how mad or happy she is. I love that she uses words in a tantrum, and I love that she's experimenting with nonverbal ways to express and process feelings, too.

I love that CG thinks about complicated things--we're bringing dinner to Tante Mississippi and Curly Haired Cousin on Sunday. "Why are we doing that?" she wondered. I said it would help them feel better. "Tante Mississippi is still sad sometimes. I am, too. I miss Uncle Quiet. Do you feel a litle sad still." "Just a little," she said. "I'm thinking about other things, because it's more happier. But that's good that we're going to visit them." I could keep adding to my last post indefinitely, it seems: she continues to talk about her wonderful uncle in ways that make me want to laugh and cry all at once.

I love this feeling of connection I have with her, and I love watching her learn to be more independent of that connection. She does, seemingly naturally, what I've spent hours in therapy to learn to do. Maybe I could do this too, when I was five. I don't know. But she can, and it's pretty darn amazing to watch.

Curious Girl has some hard things in her life to think about. Lately, she's been saying that she wishes she still lived with her birth parents. She's starting to realize that being adopted meant that she wasn't cared for by her first parents, that someone wasn't able to keep her. I don't think she's quite put it all together, but it's coming. One night she said, "Whoever gets to keep me is the luckiest." I'm careful here-I know that she will make her own way through these issues, and I never want her to feel the need to protect me or Politica from her feelings about adoption and family. So I say things like, "I wish you knew them better," or "You are an amazing girl with a very loving heart." I want to keep the conversation going, hard though it may be some day. It's hard for me, juggling all the paradoxes of adoption. I wish CG didn't have to deal with the grief and hurt from her past. I wish CG's parents didn't have the burdens they must have had not to be able to parent. Yet life without CG...hard to imagine at this point. It's mind-boggling, the complications. And she knows that, on some level, and she's making sense of it all at her own pace. She's thinking, she's reaching for words, and she has a box full of little papers to help her with the hard stuff. And tonight, that's worth bragging on.

Thirteen Ways of Losing an Uncle

Updated to add: If you click through the link on IndyAnne's comment below, you can see some beautiful photos of Tante Mississippi and Uncle Quiet, and read some material from the memorial service. Thanks, Anne.

Me: Uncle Quiet is dying, Curious Girl. He is very sick, and his body can't get better anymore.
Curious Girl: That is so sad. I have to tell everyone!

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a few minutes later
CG: That is so sad about Uncle Quiet. (She sits down next to me and sits quietly for a few seconds.) I am going to think about something else now. It's much more happier that way.

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In the car, headed to Lisneydand, CG asks, "how do you spell Uncle Quiet?" We tell her, and she starts writing it down. "Do you know what this is? It's a list of people who are dead. Who else should I put on it?" I suggest my predecessor as department chair. "But he's been dead a long time. Uncle Quiet is still getting used to it."
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CG: What is Uncle Quiet doing right now?
me: He's very sick, CG, and he's dying. Tante Misssissippi is taking good care of him, and his mother is there, and Grandaddy J and Grandma L and Curly Haired Cousin and lots of people.
CG: But what is he doing right now? Is he dying right now? Did he already die?
me: I don't know, sweetie. Tante Mississippi is taking good care of him, and he knows we all love him.
CG: But what if he doesn't die?
me: Then Tante Mississippi will keep taking good care of him.

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After Uncle Quiet died

CG: Tell Tante Mississippi that we still love Uncle Quiet and it's going to be OK.

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CG: I'm going to make something beautiful for where he died. I will draw a picture, a flower. I know! I'll make a garden. Maybe something out of clay.

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We should get Tante Mississippi a present. Maybe a picture, maybe a picture frame like we got Mommy for her trip. I know! A picture of me! With the princesses! That would make her much more happier.

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on a postcard from Lisneydand

Hi Tante Mississippi and Curly Haired Cousin,

We're sorry Uncle Quiet died.
I miss you.
We're at a friend's house.
We didn't see any airplanes at Lisneydand. (Curly Haired Cousin loves airplanes)
I love you, Curious Girl
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driving from the airport, heading for Tante Mississippi's house
CG: When are we going to be there?
me: Not too long. We get off at the next exit, the same exit we use to get to our house. Tante Mississippi and Uncle Quiet's house is on the way home from the airport to our house.
CG: Not Uncle Quiet anymore.
me: That's right, but it's going to take some time to get used to that.
CG: Especially for Curly Haired Cousin

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CG: Is Tante Mississippi still sad?
me: Yes, she's still sad.
CG: She might be a little sad forever.
me: she might, in a way, but she will also be happy again. We can all smile when we remember Uncle Quiet even though we miss him.
CG: but she might be a little sad forever. That's OK.

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CG: Is Uncle Quiet in our family?
me: yes.
CG: Is Tante Mississippi in our family?
me: yes
CG: Is Uncle Quiet still an uncle?
me: yes, honey
CG: but a dead one now.
me: right.
CG: you can be an uncle and be dead?
me: like Cool Uncle.
CG: at least I got to meet him. Did I meet Cool Uncle?
me: no, honey, he died right when you were coming into our family.
CG: and Mormor (Politica's mother). I never got to meet her. That's not fair. But I met Uncle Quiet a lot of times.

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I think Uncle Quiet has friends already underground. Is he underground already? I think he has friends there.


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Can he still remember us?

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I tell Curious Girl that we can remember Uncle Quiet, that we will write things down for Tante Mississippi and Curly Haired Cousin, that Uncle Quiet is part of us because we remember him and tell stories about him. I tell her that we loved him, he loved us, and we all knew we loved each other. I tell her that sometimes, people get so very sick, very, very sick, that their bodies can't get better even though they try and their doctors try. I let her talk, I listen, I take her to Tante Mississippi's often. I really don't know how she's going to make sense of all of it, but for now, this is the best I can come up with. I'm using the lessons from all our adoption talk: I don't keep secrets, I answer the questions she has, I encourage her to talk about it all. Anyone else have any good ideas about helping small children navigate a loss like this?

Fish on TV and Ice Cream for Breakfast

I'm loving Bardiac these days--well, I've loved Bardiac for a long time, but her recent posts on life in Japan fascinate me because I love the ins and outs of just living somewhere else. Reading about learning to decipher the pictographs on toilets or kitchen appliances, learning about how snack food is packaged somewhere else, learning about negotiating the daily-ness of life somewhere else has always fascinated me. I enjoy the gorgeous photos that the NY Times Sunday Travel section now ends with, but I miss the first-person essays that used to appear in that space. I love personal travel stories about negotiating regular activities in another place.

When we visited Budapest several years ago, we found a TV station whose camera was, 24/7, trained on a fish tank. Always the same fish tank. I watched it a little every day. What a delightfully weird piece of public programming. Fish tanks reduce stress in real life--who knows what watching one on TV will do. I sure enjoyed it in our Danube and Parliament-view hotel room.

Curious Girl and I just got back from a weekend of visiting friends and (for me) a conference. I'm happy to be home (even if the dishwasher didn't magically empty itself while I was gone). It was a great little visit, with friends who have two kids, one a little older than CG, the other a little younger. We'd never stayed at their house before, but we fit right in, and CG was pretty excited to discover some new toys (like an indoor basketball hoop and the wondrous playmobil). We stayed up until almost 11 one night--something that is a rare event around here, where bedtime can start at 6:30 as the week goes on and CG gets increasingly tired. We ate breakfast a while after waking, instead of right away. We had ice cream for breakfast one day (because the friends we visited are also people who've worked at getting kids to gain weight--what a joy to have friends who can swap calorie tips rather than wondering, "but won't that be creating bad habits later in life?"). The kids invented a few new games,heavily influenced by CG's home classics "Pet Shop" and "Office" crossed with our friends' favorite pretends. They played basketball even when people were sitting on the couch, a big treat given our lack of hoops and general lack of enthusiasm for indoor ball throwing. We sang one of our home Shabbat melodies (which led to a lot of questions about why our melody wasn't the same as our friends' usual melody).

It's easy to get off-routine when traveling. As long as Curious Girl knows where Politica or I will be, and as long as she knows she doesn't have to put herself to sleep, she's usually a pretty happy camper. She's a partying girl--despite the fact that she's ready for bed quite early on most nights, she invariably rises to the occasion and happily stays up late as long as there's good company. In the afternoon following our very late night, she had a weird little fit, a product of fatigue and perhaps hunger. But that passed (with a bit of mood management on my part), and she was back to her party-hearty self, happy to stay up not-quite-so-late-but-still-pretty-late that night. And I loved it.

I'm happy to give CG some later nights with other kids to play with, some lazy mornings and even some grumpy afternoons as a consequence. It's fun to try on being someone who stays up a little late, someone who does Shabbat a little different, someone who eats a little later or organizes the day a little different. Some things from this visit will probably stick around. Ice cream for breakfast? Why not? (CG modeled eating pizza for breakfast while we were there, something I don't think our friends will be imitating anytime soon, but one never knows....) Other things, I'm happy to leave on the road. CG was happy to fall asleep around 7:30 tonight after a batch. We're getting back into our usual routines, and that feels good. But I like knowing that our usual routines could be different, that we can be people who sleep later, eat differently, use our time a little differently. There are a lot of ways to move through the world, and I like to try moving differently every now and again.

So ice cream or pizza for breakfast: try it. It's good to know things don't always need to be the same old way we love them to be. We might love the new ways, too, even just for a weekend.

A Nod to Bob

A note to googlers: this post isn't about the Bob Dylan tribute album, but if you're wondering whether it's any good: yes, it is.

It may be just about time to break out a poem I have posted before, in honor of some of your kids who've learned to read

"The First Book," by Rita Dove:

Open it.

Go ahead, it won't bite.
Well...maybe a little.

More a nip, like. A tingle.
It's pleasurable, really.

You see, it keeps on opening.
You may fall in.

Sure, it's hard to get started;
remember learing to use

knife and fork? Dig in:
You'll never read the bottom.

It's not like it's the end of the world--
just the world as you think

you know it.

Curious Girl's first book: Mat, in the Bob first level series. I think Moreena got the Bob books just right: they are hardly compelling literature, but the art and the typeface balance beautifully, and the books are easy enough for a kid who is just starting to read to do it on her own. We saw a boxed set at a used bookshop today, and CG said, "Oh, those are baby books." I said no, they were for kids just learning to read, and she asked for them. I said OK (I am a bookstore pushover, after all), and in the car, she started reading the first book on her own. Then the second, and eventually got up to the 6th in the series. Not without some frustration, and not without sometimes forgetting how to sound things out or forgetting what a word means.

But boy was she pleased with herself. Tonight, for the first time, she read me a bedtime story (and read Politica one via Skype, and then I read her one). More fluency will come, and she'll soon be able to read harder words, longer stories. But still, tonight she read a whole little book to me. May it be the first of many, with the literary quality only climbing up.

What Politica is Missing (besides us, of course)

• 62 performance reviews
• countless pieces of paper scattered on the floor as an illustration of how mad Curious Girl got today. Look how mad I am, Mama! she screeched.
  
• 9 days away from the office (well, I did go in to change my "I'm away for the week" sign to the "I have limited office hours this week" sign. Does that count?)
  
• 7 flight segments for me and Curious Girl within a month
• 3 loaves of bread (one to Mississippi Friend, one to Historian Friend, one for us)
  
• 2 days of no! school! for Curious Girl (great for her teachers, not so great for us working parents)
• 2 major tantrums in! one! day!
  
• 1 wiggly tooth (so we may find out soon whether the Tooth Fairy really does leave baby sisters, as CG maintains she does. I remain skeptically amused.)
  

Hopes, Dreams

Here's one story about today:

We're in the H@ppiest Pl@ce on E@rth right now, happily exhausted from a day spent largely princessing about. Curious Girl's way of approaching any new situation is to decide in advance an activity to focus on (princesses) and then to repeat activities to get herself used to things. So today, while other families were busy trying to cram as many activities into the day as they could, we went on the same few rides multiple times, and spent several hours in the princess area, listening to stories, standing on a ridiculously long line to meet the princesses (but what joy at the end of the line!), and watching various royal ceremonies. The princesses do a great job of storytelling and interacting with little guests, and the emphasis in all the patter is on some basic royal lessons: follow your dreams, tell the truth, use good manners, and have hope. If you do all that, you can face whatever comes. And, of course, you'll find true love and live Happily Ever After. But the big emphasis is on dreams and hope.

Curious Girl is eating it up. She wore her Cinderella dress to the park today, and she got her hair done all princessy fancy, with glitter and little flowers and a bun. She was tickled by the way everyone called her princess (even some other children), and happily pretended her way through the day. The twirling tea cups may be rated a very tame ride by all the guidebooks, but I got a thrill watching my fancy Cinderella daughter exclaiming, "yeah, baby!" as the tea cups spun.

She's beautiful, and she loves being in a place where there are princesses around every corner (if you don't leave the princessy part of the park, that is. Our brief foray into a neighboring park was met with G00fy fear. Go figure. Minnie Mouse, not scary. But G00fy, scary).

I can't tell how much she is actually attending to the stories the princesses tell. She knows the basic outlines of all the princess stories, of course, but as her version of them all is a big princess girl power confab in the castle where all the princes are invariably unavailable (having served their purpose to create a big wedding party at which it is possible to dance with one's mothers, and sometimes to help make a baby), I don't know how much she attends to the messages about hopes, dreams, love.

Here's another story about today: Quiet Friend just passed away. We're surrounded by these messages of hopes, dreams, love conquering all, acutely aware of the ways in Quiet Friend would be happy and healthy today were if possible for hopes, dreams, and love to cure him. He died peacefully, Mississippi Friend tells us, but he died after coming through years of cancers that just wore his body down. His mother never left after his last hospitalization, so the room we helped restore went to good use, even if it never housed the people caring for him after the bone marrow transplant we all had hoped for.

Quiet Friend was a good, good person. Not easy to get to know, but well worth knowing. Smart and classy, he had a self-confidence that carried him through the world. He was great at Taboo--as Mississippi Friend once said, that's how Quiet Friend talked in regular conversations. He had an amazing vocabulary and just loved words. His brain tumor took a lot away, though. Not language so much as motivation. His work history turned spotty after he got sick. For months on end he'd be too sick to work. But the work he did do was wonderful, even when he was too tired after doing all that work to do much at home (which made living with his illness hard for Mississippi Friend). But what strength of will it took to get that work done. Quiet Friend was a force in the world, a force finally worn away by too much illness. But I will remember him, quiet, sharing a picnic with all of us, being on the beach in Florida on a vacation we took together, before Sofia, when Mississippi Friend and Quiet Friend's son (now 7) was an infant, cooking most of the food for Curious Girl's naming celebration, coming out to our holiday party even when his chemo exhausted him. So many memories run through my head tonight.

I'm glad he's no longer in pain, no longer struggling. But I miss him, and Politica and I are both broken-hearted to be so far from Mississippi Friend tonight.

Hope couldn't make him better. I can't decide whether I'm angry at the lights of the resort flickering out my window, or comforted by them. I know I am comforted by Curious Girl's response--surely a subject for another post. I told her a few days ago that Uncle Quiet was dying, and she's been thinking hard about all this. When Politica called Mississippi Friend tonight, CG said, "tell her we still love him, and it will be all right." CG's empathy is a gift.

We do still love him. And Mississippi Friend, whose grief I can only begin to imagine. Life surely isn't fair tonight, not even in the H@ppiest Pl@ce on E@rth.

More Things You Missed in Sunday School

We interrupt the Super Goal to bring you the latest in creative retellings of Biblical material.

The scene: the stair landing, with Curious Girl coming down from upstairs. I had sent her to get the animal or doll she wanted to sleep with while I went downstairs to get the new book she'd gotten as a yay! baby! gift at the Super Goal/Welcome Baby party we'd been to earlier. I'm coming back up, and she's just arrived on the landing.

CG: Look, Mama! I've got her! Baby Miriam! (she strokes her Baby Miriam doll, which is a doll that came with a Moses basket, except that we call it a Miriam basket, since it holds her Baby Miriam).

Me: Hi, Baby Miriam!

CG, gesturing with her hands: Mama, this can be the water, and the basket it in it, and I find her! She smooths the water and puts the basket in the water. Oh, look, a baby! It's crying. Baby, it's OK. I'll take care of you. And she picks up the basket and takes the baby upstairs. Baby Miriam, it's OK. You're going to be a baby forever, and I'll take care of you.

Germany

So here's what I haven't been blogging about for the past few months: we're moving. New jobs, new house, new part of the country. A couple of my colleagues read this sometimes, so I didn't want to spill the beans here before things went public at work.

We're moving.

I'm still trying to get my head around this, despite the fact that I've known since June that things were likely going to shape up this way. June is a funny time for an academic interview, but for a variety of reasons I can't explain on a (presumably) pseudonymous blog, we ended up with some off-cycle interviews, and amazingly, have managed, again, to end up with a pair of tenure-line job offers. A pair of tenured job offers, in fact.

So, we're moving, and I'm a lame-duck department chair, which is an interesting role. Last year at this time, I was going through my first round of performance reviews with my large (60+) department, and it felt like the first in a long series. I approached the reviews with the sense that I was going to be the chair who'd shepherd the assistant professors through tenure, who'd (hopefully) coach a few associate professors through their second promotion. Now, we all know I"m leaving, so that throws my role into some confusion.

I get reviewed by the other full professors in the department. One of them asked me last week, Why do we review you? If you view performance reviews as supervision, it doesn't make sense. But if you view performance reviews as a way of gauging how individual work helps add up to the department's collective work, it does make sense. This is the most cat-herding part of the year, because some people welcome the performance review, some are constitutionally opposed to them, and some just don't give a fig either way. So I write my reviews partly with an eye on the colleague's attitude toward it all, partly with an eye on their career trajectory. I'll still meet with everyone to talk about their reviews--after all, their career paths don't stop for a year just because the department chair is changing.

*******************************

Why Germany in the title of the post? I need to think of a pseudonym for New Hometown, but for today, it's Germany. We visited Germany--the real Germany--last summer, and one of the cities we saw in Germany has a name that, if you are a small child and transpose sounds and then change a few sounds and rhyme them, sounds a little like New Hometown. It took me several months to figure this out, as it explains Curious Girl's questions like "Do they speak English in New Hometown?" "What if I go to school and I can't understand the people?"

********************************

We're downsizing. It's likely we'll end up in a smaller house than the one we have now, and I figure that's only a problem if you try to have stuff that exceeds the function of the smaller house. So I'm sorting through things. I just found library bookmarks from my hometown library that I probably got in 7th grade. I cleaned out a jewelry box and found the gold honors medal I got for graduating 8th grade. Actually, I didn't get it at my 8th grade graduation. I had the top grades in my class, as I recall, and thus qualified for a $300 scholarship for high school. But because I had won a scholarship from another source, the school didn't give me the $300 scholarship. They gave it to the next kid down. I didn't mind that so much, but I did mind that I left graduation without so much as a card or certificate or little medal that went with the award. I stewed about that for months, and finally my parents said, "Well, write to the principal." So I did, and she came to the house after dinner one night, apologized, and gave me this little medal. I didn't throw out the medal, but I think I might. I can't figure out a good decision rule about memorabilia. I don't want to erase my past, but I'm not sure the 8th grade medals need to come to Germany. (That said, another thing I have to decide about is the box of little medals and pins that my favorite uncle--now deceased--did save from his high school and college. I'm not sure what to do about those.)

But I was rather pleased to unearth my "Books, like friends, should be well-chosen" bookmark. I loved my hometown library.

Wish me decluttering strength, please.

Random Bullets of Curious Girl

• There's a sign on Curious Girl's door tonight, a sign she dictated to me during dinner, for use later in the evening:

The Noodle Girl is sleeping, because her belly is full from all the noodles

Kitsune udon, to be precise. She and a friend just couldn't stop eating at dinner, and I am just loving it. Her friend's grandparents, who first met her when we were doing 5 tube feedings a day, couldn't believe it either.

• Conversation while driving home from the synagogue this morning:

Curious Girl: "I love Baby Jesus."
Me: "Hmm....you love Baby Jesus? Um, what do you like about Baby Jesus?"
Curious Girl: "That she's so cute."

• She's ready for the Super Bowl. She wore three layers of Giants gear today.
  
  
  

Five Years and Two Days

I never liked the term Gotcha Day to mark the anniversary of adoption--it's too informal, too grasping, too cut-and-dried to make sense of the complications of adoption and family. We call it Family Day, although we've never been sure how to celebrate it. The first year, think we made a point of watching some video we'd shot on the first day we met Curious Girl (but then I left it in the VCR and something recorded over part of it, which caused me great trauma, although we eventually found another copy that is whole). We made a dinner with food from CG's homeland (which she didn't eat, having a feeding tube at the time). Another year, we had a friend over. We've never really settled on a ritual. I've read that some families have very particular celebrations (like presenting the child with a gift from their homeland every year), but we've never come up with much of anything.

This year, we didn't do much of anything. Politica is away--although we had talked about the fact that she would miss family day at home--and somehow, I think we lost track of what the date is. Maybe that's OK: I'm still not sure exactly what we're celebrating. There's so much loss wrapped up in her early months, and I'm very aware of that as I think back on our time with her in her orphanage.

I love December and January, though. They remind me of that most magical period in 2002-2003, when we learned about Curious Girl, started making travel plans, and met her. When we went to court, when we held her, when we dressed her. Every day, I marvel at her: her language, her self-awareness, her joy. I treasure the unfolding relationship we have, the steps she takes toward independence, the snuggles she wants in the morning and at night, the sling she still wants to ride in when she's sad or scared, the books she shares with me, the art and letters she makes. I love the way she can talk about adoption, heartbreaking as it sometimes can be. In December, when her class put on a play, she asked "Will [my birthparents] be there?" I explained that no, they wouldn't, which led to a series of questions and comments about whether they had our phone number and if they could come to visit. The other day, she was trying to explain that she knew more things than a younger friend did. I pointed out that younger friend could do a lot, knew a lot. "But he doesn't know about orphanages," she said. Not that she remembers hers directly, but I did allow as he didn't know much about orphanages, having been born to his mother.

Judges made Politica and me mothers, legally. But Curious Girl makes us mothers over, and over, every day. And for five years and two days, it's been an honor and a privilege--I wake up every morning wanting more.

And City Books!

When I dropped Curious Girl off at school today, we read the board together. In her responsive classroom, there's always an interactive part to the morning message, and today's was "Name one thing you find in a city." Her classroom is heading into a unit on cities, which will culminate in Mini City, where each 4/5 classroom opens 4-5 stores and the children alternate between being shoppers and being shopkeepers. On the final of the three mini city days, it's open doors among the 3 classrooms and the little shoppers can go anywhere! Last year, CG's classroom had a jewelry shop, a pet shop, and the Lookin' Good Salon, where you could get a shave, manicure, makeover, and hair cut.

So I'm also thinking about city books for the spring. I'll check out Elswhere's great list in her comment on the prior post, and maybe push back The Chicken Chasing Queen for later in the spring. Knuffle Bunny Too, which CG is pushing for this week, does have a multicultural friendship developing (not to give too much away!). I also like Music Over Manhattan for its cityscapes; I'll check out Ezra Jack Keats' work, too, as it's set in cities.

But now, off to work, where I'm working on an essay about teaching English. Time for some writing of my own!

My Wednesday Book Club

Edited to add a book I forgot--and check out the great suggestions in the comments!

Edited again to add: Mo Willems (now the Geisel winning, Caldecott Honor winning author) has a blog.

S. asked in a recent commet how my reading went last week. Every Wednesday, I have lunch with Curious Girl and her 15 classmates, and after lunch, I read them a story. This didn't start as a regular pattern, although I do try to go and have lunch once a week at her Posh Progressive School (tons of tuition, and she gets free lunch everyday, and so do I anytime I want to join them. Plus free school pictures. Such a deal!). Sometime in September, we'd been reading Borya and the Burps, and CG asked me to come to school and read it to her friends. Sure thing, I said. Then we were reading another book at home, and she asked me to read again. The teachers love it, and I love it, and now the girls think that any parent who comes to the classroom after lunch is going to read to them--they automatically sit on the mat for storytime. I love that part.

So I've been having a ball thinking about what books to read with them. So far, we've read

• Borya and the Burps, by Joan McNamara (and we also looked at a few pages of CG's baby pictures from her orphanage--this book is a wonderful story about a burpy boy who gets adopted in an Eastern European story; it really captures some of the emotions an infant can feel during all that transition)
• Library Lion, by Michelle Knudsen, who has a blog (a great book for people who love books: what's not to like about a lion who loves to go to the library, and has to learn that sometimes, it's OK to break the rules)
  
• Jessica, by Kevin Henkes (who is rapidly becoming one of my very favorite authors)
  
• The Adventures of Polo, by Regis Faller (a graphic novel for kids!)
  
• The Trouble with Chickens, by Bruce McMillan (on his author site, select Books at left and the Trouble with Chickens will come up in the right frame--scroll down and you'll get interesting links to the amazing illustrator's work--Gunnella. He does a lot of work in Iceland)
  
• Knut: How One Little Polar Bear Captured the World, by Craig Hartikoff. A true story! And CG got to share the Knut stuffed bear we got near the Knut exhibit last summer
  
• The Apple Doll, by Elsa Kleven (it has directions for making an apple doll at the back, and it's a great story about a girl and the rough start to a school year and how imagination saves the day)
  
• The Quiltmaker's Gift, by Jeff Brumbeau
  
• Snowflake Bentley, by Jacqueline Martin
• Miss Bridie Chose a Shovel, by Leslie Connor
  

and perhaps a few other titles as well--like Chester's Way, another Henkes title. The girls are a wonderful audience--they are wiggly squiggly, of course, but they clearly love our reading time. When I arrive at the lunch table, several of them ask "What book did you bring today?" I usually try to have some kind of interactive portion of the reading (during Jessica, for example, they got to be an antiphonal chorus, half of them being the parents saying "There is no Jessica" and the other half responding, "But there was.") Or I'll ask them to look for things on the page, or to predict what a character might do next, or how someone might be feeling. Curious Girl handles the questions and comments at the end (3 or 4 participants), and it's so cool how they all raise their hands to tell everyone what they liked or to respond to whatever question I've posed. Last week, as I closed The Quiltmaker's Gift, one girl exclaimed, 'That is the BEST book! I love all the pages!!" I just don't see that kind of enthusiasm spilling out in college classes.

I'm a teacher, so I"m always looking for activity tie-ins. For Snowflake Bentley--the true story, gorgeously illustrated with Mary Azarian's woodcuts, of the man whose photographs of snowflakes are the basis of the first scientific study of snow crystals--I brought them all a piece of black construction paper. If you keep it in the freezer, and take it out when it's snowing, you'll be able to see the snow crystals on the paper. The different shapes are truly amazing. We also looked at online images from his collection (click on any image to embiggen). As the girls said, "Hey, that one looks like a snowflake!" (when it had that what-you-think-a-snowflake-looks-like-shape) but for others, "a flower!" and other shapes. Even if you think you know that snow crystals are unique, you'll be amazed at what you see.

Last week, after the Quiltmaker's Gift, I cut up some scrapbooking paper into squares, rectangles, and triangles, and the girls all made paper quilts the next morning at choice time. I have been working on more ways to get scissors, crayons, and coloring opportunities into my writing courses in college, too, but the crafty possibilities are endless with the preschool set. I also decided to try having them help me read--when we did Polo, I had each girl read through one two page spread. They didn't hold each others' attention as well as my reading does, but I liked encouraging everyone to come up and read.

As I've been thinking about this post, I realized my list of books has mostly white protagonists, so I'm going to make some extra efforts to diversify my selections for the spring readings. Next week, we'll be reading The Chicken Chasing Queen of Lamar County, by Janice N. Harrington. Tonight at home, we read Norton Juster's The Hello, Goodbye Window (illustrations by Chris Raschka, another one of our favorites; yes, that is the same Juster from The Phantom Tollbooth) and I may take that one in. Because it's an all-girl class, I've been emphasizing books with girls, although not exclusively--Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney is on my mind for sometime, too.

I guess I don't need to sell the value of reading to kids to anyone taking the time to read blogs by mothers who like to write and academics who read and write and think and teach. I've been reading to Curious Girl since our first night together, and I've been enjoying introducing her to old favorites of mine and learning my way around new-to-me authors like Mo Willems and Kevin Henkes. But I am just loving the informal structure of my Wednesday Book Club--my little moment to think about themes, rhymes, illustrations, colors, activities that will engage my very loving, wiggly audience. I love getting to know the girls, know who gets scared, who likes to participate, who needs some encouragement. And I love seeing their appreciation for longer stories emerge.

And to tell the truth, I like the books, too, with their merging of visual and textual features. They're fun.

So what are you all reading, aloud or silently, with the kids in your lives? And any suggestions for our spring selections?

Rollercoasters, List Version

The Home Front

• Politica is off on a professional adventure. Yay her.
• Emotions are, um, turbulent. Curious Girl and I are not getting enough sleep, and tempers were fraying last night, starting with an argument about why I am the meanest person ever because I would not let CG stay up until midnight even though Twin Friends (allegedly) got to stay up until midnight one night, ending with over 90 minutes of sobbing and screaming (not all of it CG's, I should mention).
  
• Have I mentioned how much I love CG's teachers? They knew CG was off-kilter the minute we walked in. Short Teacher suggested that CG could draw a picture of what she's mad about, when she gets all mad.
• So today, we're going to make a Feeling Box, with art supplies in it, so that we can draw mad pictures when we need to. Cross your fingers that this works. (It well might. Similar tactics have.)
• I'm going to lunch with CG's class today. I'll have to post about my post-lunch reading series with the girls. They are a great audience.
  

The Office Front

• Performance review season is always here. That stresses people out, and there are a million little questions about what to put where on the form. My university requires everything to be classified as teaching, research, or service, and that leads to a lot of fretting about whether, say, judging the student magical mystery competition is teaching or service or whether writing a short article for publication x is research or teaching. It's not easy to balance reassuring the stress with encouraging people to step back and think about how their report communicates what they did.
• My favorite part about being department chair is helping people--it's so emotionally rewarding to have conversations helping to move toward tenure dossiers, for example. The flip side of that, though, is being a responsible chair even in situations where things are not emotionally rewarding--I'm learning strategies for not taking it personally when colleagues are doing things that don't work so well. It's hard, but important, to keep that boundary up. Thank FSM for the therapy that taught me about boundaries. They rock.
  
• I cleared my desk yesterday! (But my desk at home is now piled with stuff from the bedroom, that's getting painted. Boo.)

I am now going to read and write until lunch, at home. I love Wednesdays.

Even Dr. Google has his limitations....

Background info: Curious Girl loves John and Abigail Adams. and last night, when she couldn't sleep, and she got into a fit of giggles with Politica around midnight, I asked what was so funny and she said, "The presidents!! They slept sitting up! John Adams slept sitting up!"

So at dinner, Curious Girl is looking at her placemat o' presidents, and says, "these ones (pointing to the top row) slept sitting up. John Adams! John Adams! Last night, I almost slept sitting up!" Politica had remembered a museum docent somewhere telling us that the reason old beds are so short is not because the people were shorter (although they were, a bit), but because people used to believe it was healthier to sleep sitting up. So we all got to wondering which presidents slept sitting up and which would have been of the era when the thinking about sleep changed and people would begin to sleep laying down.

Politica says, "Let's ask Dr. Google," and moves over to the conveniently located laptop. Curious Girl, who'd been on the way to the bathroom to wash her hands, runs back in the room. "Dr. Google! Can I see? Is there a picture of him?"

As I'm clearing the dishes, I hear these questions spilling out, as Politica is googling various things, calling out to me "what about this phrase?" "how about this one?" to try to find an answer to our question (I'm hoping this is the sort of little detail Trillwing might have encountered in her seems-to-me-incredibly-cool-program, or my favorite librarian readers might have a tip). All the while CG is keeping up a patter:

Does Dr. Google know everything?
Does he know about me?
Why don't you ask "why do cows have black spots?"
Can we go visit him?
Does he know about lions?

Reference librarians will never go out of business.

Pinky Promise

We need a little levity around here, what with the drama I've been writing about in my last several posts. Just to show you another side of life in the Granola household, here's a scene from yesterday afternoon, when Curious Girl was having a skating party indoors with all her (imaginary) loved friends. (In case you're wondering how to make an indoor icerink, here's how: scatter paper all over the floor, take off your slippers, and slide around, saying "Mama! I'm skating!").

Curious Girl: You can be the girl police officer who takes care of the party. And you're my cousin. But pretend you didn't know it was my skating party and I didn't know you were coming.

Me: OK. (pause) Hey, cousin, is that you?!?

CG: Cousin!!!! You're here for my party.

Me: Hey, kids! No pushing on the ice. Good job, babies!! Look, CG, aren't the babies doing a good job?

CG, beaming: Yes! I teached them how to skate.

CG skates around, then returns to me. "Pretend you're going to live with me in my house for the whole rest of the year, but I don't know that."

Me: You know, there's not much left of the rest of the year. When we wake up tomorrow, it'll be a whole new year. Now, it's 2007, but tomorrow, it will be 2008.

CG: No way! Tell me the truth.

Me: Really. Right now it's December. I can show you on your calendar. Tomorrow starts January, and it's a whole new year then.

CG: No it is not. I don't believe you. For real? Tell me the truth.

Me, trying not to laugh: Really, truly, for real life. It's going to be 2008 tomorrow. It's the last day of 2007.

CG: But tell me the truth. Pinky promise? (extending pinky) For real, pinky promise?

Me: Pinky promise it is really going to be a new year tomorrow.

CG: I don't believe you.

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This morning, when CG wakes up, having slept in a little after the late night she had at a new year's party with our friends, I tell her "Happy new year."

CG: I didn't believe you yesterday. But today I do.

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Some cool new year's posts are up at Magpie's, Rhymes with Javelin, Profgrrl's (the post before that is a good New Year's meme which I may do later in the week), and Geeky Mom's.

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So however unbelieveable it is that a new year has arrived, may it bring you and yours bountiful hope, joys, and community.

A Popsicle

Things are looking up, and I am wordlessly grateful for all the comments on the previous post.

Quiet Friend is better today--recognizing more people, more alert, even sat up to eat a popsicle. It may be that the combination of not enough platelets and too much fluid in the body caused weirdness in the brain.

So things are looking up, today. And Mississippi Friend, ever a believer in the kindness of strangers, will be touched by your comments. Thanks for helping us wait this out--today, hope seems more possible.