Okay, NOW it's fall.

Here's how you know:
1) It's raining! At last.
2) Today I get to wear, for the first time, my incredibly awesome new boots.*  They're like tall, clunky rainboots, which I needed, but made of leather, so they're comfortable and don't make my feet sweaty.** (I did feel like a Nazi character from an Indiana Jones movie when I first tried them on, but the faint desire to slap a riding crop on my leg has since faded away.)
3) Sweaters! I missed them.
4) School has resurfaced Dutch's hatred of being seen to do things wrong. The paperwork she brings home is more challenging than last year's papers, and includes marking of errors, and if we try to talk about it with her, she bursts into tears and says "It's all my teacher's fault! She isn't teaching us right!" Sigh.
5) Halloween trappings are on sale everywhere.

In unrelated news, Dutch has announced her career plans. She's going to move to Hollywood and work "on movies somehow."


*And, to make it all even awesomer, I got them at a very steep discount, thanks to a reward coupon I got for volunteering. Volunteering is good for more than just karma, apparently!
** Did you think I meant sexy boots with heels? Oh no. I walk and bike everywhere, you guys. Plus I have weak ankles and fat calves, and no fashion sense.

This weekend

 Dutch started telling us this evening that she might decide to get rich when she grows up. "I know how to get rich," she informed us casually. Cook and I gave her our full attention, but when she said "Well, to start with, you have to have at least $300," I decided I had to film the explanation.

*

And then when I plugged the camera into the computer to download the video, I discovered that there were about twenty short videos on the camera (which was surprisingly low on battery power when I picked it up) that Skipper had taken. Apparently she's been furtively filming for the last month or so. Here is what Cook and I judged to be her finest work, shot yesterday. She hasn't done any editing, so it's a little rough.

*(Dutch got a haircut this weekend. It looks pretty great, actually, though this very unflatteringly-lit video suggests otherwise.)

Republican presidential candidates would despair over Dutch.

Dutch is playing a quiet game this rainy* afternoon (Skipper is napping, so the household is in a pleasant state of calm) with a lot of beads. Apparently, some beads are getting married, and she's arranging them into groups and holding a wedding ceremony, etc. She showed me Mr. Brown and Mrs. Brown... and Mr. Brown. I asked if the second Mr. Brown was the brother of the first Mr. Brown, and she explained that the three Browns are married to each other. I said "That's not legal in most countries," and she said "Well, it's legal in Bead Country." and then she thought about it for a minute and said "Everything is legal in Bead Country, except hurting and killing beads."



*Fall has arrived. It's going to rain for six months now.

Yet another Friday night blog...

You might almost think that I am very, very square. So square that I use the phrase "square."

News... we don't really have any. We've been busy. I've had a lot to do this week. Dutch thinks first grade is "awesome," and Skipper sleeps through most of the day at preschool, a brilliant coping mechanism. Skipper claims to be "a big gril!" and may someday leave diapers behind. Someday.

There are still so many tomatoes. SO MANY TOMATOES. However, fall is going to start on Monday, and we have another cold, rainy winter ahead, apparently. That'll put an end to those damn tomatoes.

Really, I really have no news. Really. Nooooo news. Oh, except that I'm going to plant garlic! Exciting!

What We Are Reading

This is what Dutch is reading right now. It is apparently very, very gripping.

This is Skipper's current favorite book, and it must be read to her at least twice a day.

This is what Cook's reading. He's not sure yet if he likes it or not.

This is what I'm reading. I find myself the least literary of the family.

Ma Ingalls would kill for my freezer.

So - tomatoes. We're overrun. What with the farmshare and the nine tomato plants in various states of health in our yard, it's a continual battle around here. We ate pasta with raw tomato "sauce" twice this week (and if we had to eat it every day forever, that would be okay with me). We ate pasta with a cooked tomato sauce. We ate a Big Tomato Sandwich. Cook made another batch of sauce and froze it. I roasted a billion little paste tomatoes* and froze them. We ate cherry tomatoes for snacks. We put tomatoes on everything that could possibly accommodate them. I don't think I'm going to start canning this year. Any other ideas?



*San Marzano tomatoes from a plant I ended up with sort of accidentally, but which turned out to be the most prolific of all our tomato fleet. Plus, they're really, really cute.

Will your birthday party be worth eleven miles of biking?

Yesterday Cook escorted Dutch to a birthday party. The birthday party took place at an amusement park by the river, and they had a choice of biking five and a half miles each way or riding the bus for over an hour each way. They picked bike. It rained. Dutch had an awesome time at the party, and was apparently a total trooper about the biking.

Good work!

Tom Coburn backed down. (Apparently, people like biking and walking some, but what they really like is not losing more jobs due to shut-down of the FAA.) Good job, team! Now rest up until March, when you're going to have to lobby the heck out of your legislators to get a GOOD transportation bill passed.

Birds. Bees. You know.

Dutch and I have had the Conversation. Remember that? Well, she doesn't. Yesterday, as we were chopping tomatoes  together, she mentioned (in the context of a conversation, not out of the blue) that she plans to adopt her kids rather than give birth to them. I nodded; she's talked about that before.* Then she said "Mom, how do you stop yourself from having a baby?" and I fumbled around a little bit. I talked about sperm and eggs and stuff. It was pretty vague. Finally, she said "But how will I stop my husband from mixing up his sperm and my eggs?" and I said "There are lots of ways. There's... Um. Well, it's a complicated subject, and I'm having a hard time explaining it in a way that will make sense to you. Do you want me to get you a book explaining it?" and she said "Yes!" and I said "Great!"

God, I love having a kid who can read.


*Seeing Skipper get born seems to have convinced her that growing your own baby is a foolish way to get a kid.

Food

I recently read a frightening post on a local mommyblog. It was about the blogger's 11-year-old daughter's recent shift in eating habits - when she entered middle school she started packing herself very small lunches, and often not eating any of what she packed. She comes home ravenous. The author, and many commenters, report that it is not okay for girls to eat lunch in middle school. Being seen to eat is shameful.

A chill went down my spine when I read that. I have long had a dark fear that middle school is going to eat my daughters (especially Dutch, who is sensitive to social cues and very invested in her social status).

We recently instituted a new practice; Dutch makes dinner once a week. I don't mean she makes it alone, but she chooses the recipe, she takes the lead, and she does much of the work. She's made three meals so far (pasta with roasted peppers, mac and cheese, and bean/avocado/salsa quesadillas), and it's going well. I feel like it's a parenting thing we're actually getting right (at least for NOW), and, to be honest, there aren't many of those these days with Dutch.Our goals are to:
1) Get Dutch comfortable with some basic cooking skills (meal-planning, reading a recipe, cutting things, etc.),
2) Get Dutch helping out with household duties, and
3) Show Dutch how much time and labor it takes to produce meals.

Anyway. I've written about some of my feelings about parenting a daughter and addressing Food. That was a while ago, but I still feel the same. I have no idea what I'm doing with parenting, and I certainly can't manage eating well myself. Dutch loves to eat food that's bad for her, and I'm guessing she will have similar issues with food and eating that I do. I just cross my fingers that what I can show and tell her will balance out society, genetics, and my bad role modeling. I hope.

Today's call to action!

So today I would like you to do something small, just for me.

Tom Coburn, whom I hate so much that it physically hurts me when I think about him, is attempting to strip all of the good stuff out of the transportation bill - the eentsy teensy weentsy little bit of funding that goes to make it an eentsy bit easier to walk and bike in this country - and I would really be grateful if you would make him stop.

All I want you to do is submit an email letter to your senators - it's easy, and you can do it through the League of American Bicyclists or through Transportation For America. Of course, you could also call them, or swing by their offices and yell at them. I leave that up to you.

Thank you!

Moving along

Skipper hates going to preschool. She doesn't actually hate preschool itself; she seems to like her teachers and classmates and the classroom and the yard and everything they do. But she loathes going to preschool.

In practice, this means that I spend about 45 minutes, three days a week, listening to her yell, over and over again, variations on the theme of "I really don't want to go to preschool! I REALLY don't want to go to preschool! I really DON'T WANT to go to PRESCHOOL!". She chants this while we get ready to leave, while we bike Dutch to school, while we're saying goodbye to Dutch, while we're biking to preschool, as we put away the trailer in the preschool's yard, as we go up the steps, as we open the door. It is very wearing on one's nerves, particularly when one's nerves are already frayed from the screaming match one had with one's older daughter, who has a precocious gift for really pissing one off.

Skipper is not fond of transitions, and never has been. She is suspicious about many things that adults and many other children take for granted, like permanence, safety, and the reappearance of parents. Apparently, she sternly told one of the preschool teachers "I go to preschool because I am a BIG kid. I will stay here, but I do NOT belong to you. I belong to my mama and my daddy and my Dutch. I DO NOT BELONG TO YOU."* And when they leave the little-kids house to cross the street to the big-kids house after lunch (the preschool owns two houses across the street from each other, and half the kids in each house leave after lunch, so they consolidate the rest of them in one house for the afternoon...), she's been completely freaking out, which they diagnosed is because she thought they were leaving this place for a whole OTHER PLACE and come ON, people, what the hell is going on!?

However, the preschool puts up a blog post** every day with photos and news, so I can see for myself that she does eventually stop crying and howling, and has some fun.


* I particularly like the suggestion that my shaggy, grubby child, in stained pants and a soggy diaper, worn out after singing the I-Don't-Want-To-Go-To-Preschool song for nearly an hour, thinks that she's a very appealing adoption/theft prospect.
**The blog should be titled "A Day in the Life of Privileged White Children With Yuppie Names". And all the kids seem to be wearing exactly the sort of gorgeous, eccentric, ridiculously expensive clothes I always hope to find really cheap on ebay and never do. It's a really nice preschool, and it attracts people who have money and who value thoughtful care and organic food, like, you know, me. It's  just so... I don't know. Precious.  I feel a little icky about that. But mostly I just want those clothes. I'm going to pick the best-dressed kid I can find who's a few inches taller than Skipper, and make friends with her parents.

Trying to be a feminist parent (without over-reacting or helicoptering) is confusing.

The scene: Dutch and I are walking home from school, just the two of us.
Dutch: I played with F all day today!
Me: Oh?
D: Yeah! We played Cops and Robbers.
M: Seriously? I didn't know anybody had actually played that game since 1953. Were you a cop or a robber?
D: I was the treasure!
M: Really?
D: Yes!  I was the girl who had to do everything anybody told me to do!
M: Ew.
D: Except the bad guys.
M: So... you had to do everything F told you to?
D: Yes.
M: Ew.
D: And they chased me and they caught me against the building and I had to do everything they told me to!
M: Ew. Ew, ew, ew, ew.
D: But then I destroyed them all!
M: Ah.
D: I made them into robots instead of robbers, and I made it so they didn't want the treasure, they wanted cows! They ate cows!
(pause while I try to figure out what all this means)
M: Did you have fun?
D: Yeah! I destroyed them ALL!
M: Okay then. How was music class?

It's Friday NIGHT!

Here's what I've been doing lately, not necessarily in this order:

1) Listening to this song (but not watching the video). What, you don't like the song? You find the subject matter creepy? I don't care.
2) Wishing that our summer weather had happened IN THE SUMMER, instead of waiting until September to do its thing.
3) Having more bike conversion experiences. Today, you guys, I biked ALL THE WAY DOWNTOWN!! I biked across the goddamn bridge. I am SO BRAVE! I actually chanted inspirational things to myself for the last half of the trip - "Look at you! You're crossing the bridge! You're biking DOWNTOWN! You're crossing the bridge!" - while dozens of other bicyclists and joggers (!) whizzed past me.
4) Doing laundry. Bike conversion experiences involve a lot of sweating.
5) Deciding that if traffic speed was cut down to a 20 mph maximum everywhere except for limited-access highways, basically everything would be better. Seriously, everything.
6) Wondering how to make Dutch happier, or nicer, or something. I think she's pretty fried from the effort of going to school, which doesn't help, but in general right now, she's just awful. The other night she freaked out at dinner, and stomped out the front door. Skipper immediately started howling, and shrieked "No, Dutch, don't run away!" but Cook and I looked at each other a little dreamily. Then she came back in and was incredibly nice and helpful and cheerful the rest of the evening. We thought maybe she'd been body-snatched, but she went back to being kind of an asshole the next day, so that theory was busted.
7) Watching TV while washing dishes.
8) Obsessively combing Ebay in search of more shoes with lemurs on them.
9) Trying to teach Skipper that it's GOOD to wash your body occasionally.
10) Working.
11) Thinking of ways to prepare and eat tomatoes.
12) Trying to avoid having to explain September 11th to Dutch.

Today a random guy with lots of missing teeth and a strong odor of alcohol helped me fix my bike on my way home from work. (And he really helped me - I would have taken much, much longer to solve the problem he diagnosed and fixed in about 12 seconds, and he was super-nice about my complete mechanical idiocy.) That was a lovely thing.

AGH!

This is just so wrong. Why are Republicans such crazed socialists about subsidizing cars, anyway?

Another first day

Maybe you remember your recent first days. First day at a new job, first day in a new home, first day in school... I just hope that you looked this good on your first day.

No? Well, that's because you weren't wearing socks with turtles on them AND shoes with lemurs on them. Maybe next time.

 Today was Skipper's first day of preschool. Dutch had to get in on the posing, too.

Skipper did okay. There was crying, but she survived, with help from the lemurs and turtles. (And Dutch, in case you wanted to know, had a fabulous second day of first grade.)

Off to School

This morning, Skipper and I left Dutch cheerfully digging in to her first day of first grade. Her old teacher must have talked to her new teacher, because she is sitting next to one mild trouble-maker and across from one notorious trouble-maker. My daughter, the human buffer and rule-enforcer.

Sticky

We made popsicles yesterday. We're having very summery weather this week, after a week of autumnal weather, and the kids are draining the last drops of summer joy.

At this point, Cook opened the back door and asked me if we should just give sticky Skipper her shower (we do this more or less weekly, because she hates it so much and it's miserable for everybody) instead of wiping her clean. He asked it like this, "Do you think we should go ahead and give her the full monty?" I only knew what he was talking about because he looked so resigned and slightly grim, but Skipper immediately said (suspiciously) "Are you going to give me a shower?" 

And Cook said "Yes," because we try not to lie to the kids too much.

We should probably lie to them more.

Yesterday

the news from here

I haven't been posting because... there's really not much to say. Here's what we've got for news:

1) We had a party! It was our first party in five years. It was nice! Parties are nice! However, they are very tiring, and we'll have to rest up for at least a few more years before doing that again.

2) Dutch starts school again on Tuesday. She's excited/scared. However, she has new (to her) shoes, and a new (to her) dress, and a new (new) backpack, so she's equipped. Also, she's been reading up a storm all summer, so she hasn't lost any ground in that academic respect.*

3) Skipper starts at her new preschool on Wednesday. She is looking forward to it, mostly. I expect she'll enjoy it - she has new (to her) shoes that have lemurs embroidered on them. I don't know how you could BE better prepared for basically any life situation if you already have shoes with lemurs on them.

4) We went to the zoo again. Skipper's been five times now, and she has surrendered to enjoying it. She seems to most enjoy the fish. She came face-to-face (separated by glass) with a gibbon, and she didn't like that.

5) Summer is... ending. How is that possible?

*She has, however, lost plenty of ground in everything else. For one thing, I am astonished at how poorly she spells, given what she reads, and how fluently she reads it. Seriously, this is a kid who announced happily that she had found a book she really enjoyed reading at the babysitter's house, and it turned out to be Anne of Avonlea, a lovely but not exactly easy-reading book that starts with this sentence: "A tall, slim girl, 'half-past sixteen,' with serious gray eyes and hair which her friends caled auburn, had sat down on the broad red sandstone doorstep of a Prince Edward Island farmhouse one ripe afternoon in August, firmly resolved to construe so many lines of Virgil." I'm not sure how much she understands of what she reads, but she sure reads a lot, and how is it that a kid who reads like that still doesn't know how to spell "white"?

http://xkcd.com/946/