Only in the age of computers

do you hear a three-year-old, upon coming up behind you at the computer, say,

“What are you Googling for?”

And now for something completely different

My kids love this.

Froguts.com

It doesn’t get any better than this sans formaldehyde.

I’m in trouble

Eldest Daughter was teasing me the other day about something I’d bungled (can’t remember what … the bungles are too many to catalog….) She said, “That might require a stay in the Mommy Jail.”

“Yikes,” I said. “What’s that?”

“It’s a jail for moms only. It has a time-out corner and it is manned entirely by kids.”

Uh-oh. Sounds like payback.

Should I change my shirt?

Middle daughter and I were cooking the other night, and she suddenly thought she smelled something awful. She went to the open window and sniffed … no, it wasn’t coming from outside. She smelled the air … no, it wasn’t wafting through the kitchen.

I said, “Gee, I hope it’s not me. I did shower today.”

She buried her nose in my sleeve and said, “No, you smell like your usual shirt.”

Sibling Revelry

Yesterday, at a gathering of moms, the subject of new babies and older siblings came up. We all reassured the expectant mom-of-a-toddler-with-baby-number-two-on-the-way that the whole “sibling rivalry” thing is, in great part, manufactured by TV sitcoms. If we let our kids take their cues from TV as to how they “should” react to brothers and sisters, then, yes, the rivalry arises. But, if we let them take their cues from their instincts to love and — most importantly — from us, they will display surprisingly tender, beautiful and sometimes even selfless reactions to their helpless new little brothers and sisters.

I have given my children no better gift than that of siblings. It’s a gift that need never be returned, exchanged or altered to fit. It’s a gift we can revel in.

Poetry, a mouse and Emily Dickinson

The Mouse of Amherst is a charming little book. I just reread it to my children last week. I first read it to my oldest several years ago, when we started homeschooling. This small book, by Elizabeth Spires, with lovely illustrations by Claire Nivola, is sweetly whimsical.

But it’s more than that. The life and adventures of a mouse named Emmaline, who lives in Emily Dickinson’s room, help us to consider what poetry is, what makes a poet (or poetess, or poet-mouse), and what purpose poetry serves.

Several years ago, when we first read this book, my middle child, then four years old, took quite a liking to Emily Dickinson. She asked to listen to “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” repeatedly. Then, she walked around the house reciting it, in her irresistable way:

Because I could not stop for deff
He kindwee stopped for me
The cawwiage held but just aw-selves
and immortowity.

Memories of “deff” recitations, Emmaline the Mouse’s poetry, my oldest’s delight at discovering that Emily Dickinson recognized the power of a great book (“There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away….”) — these things are mingled in my memory with autumn and the joys of our first year of homeschooling. And this year, we can start all over again with three-year-old Ramona. She realized last week that she, too, likes Emily Dickinson and Emmaline the Mouse. The power of words.

I love Ted Kooser again

I first encountered him years ago, when I was a college student. He gave a reading on our campus, and I attended all of the poetry readings, so of course I went to his. I fell madly in love with every poet who visited (for at least 15 or 20 minutes … love’s bloom fades quickly, and I was fickle.) I had critique meetings with the poets, obtained signed books, and hung on every word they deigned to share with a lowly student such as I.

I left college, eventually married, had children and then somewhere along the way, in a fit of decluttering frenzy (oh, yes, all of you moms know just what I mean) I gave away a lot of those books, including the ones I owned by Ted Kooser. Enter our local arts center, and a recent reading in our town by the same Ted Kooser. Well, not exactly the same. He has since won a Pulitzer Prize and become Poet Laureate of the United States. I remember him as a cut above many of the poets (some 20 … or is it 25?… years ago) but now, oh … He’s good. He’s very good. He has the gift of elevating the ordinary to the sublime and I so thoroughly enjoyed being immersed in his world for an hour.

I took my children along for the reading , but a number of the poems sailed right past them.

“I didn’t get most of it,” my oldest told me, looking a little embarrassed. We usually love poetry around here, and I think she expected to enjoy more of it.

Too young, I told myself, too little time for me to chatter incessantly to them (as I normally do when I’m reading to them or teaching them something) about what it all meant. But, then, on the way home, I asked one more time, “Was there anything that really stuck with you? Anything that you really liked?” and my oldest said, “Well, you know, that poem about him holding Mary Cassatt’s pastels was really cool.”

Aaahh. Yes, it was.

You can see Ted Kooser’s website here.

Why Some Moms Don’t Allow Pets

Our three-year-old is finally starting to sleep through the night a couple of times a week (insert loud cheers, huzzahs and a glass of wine here) but here’s the problem: on the nights that she sleeps through, the cat takes it upon himself to fill in the gap. Pouncing on toes, purring into my ear … oh, he varies his routine, to be sure, but one thing he does not vary is always doing this when no one else in the house has awakened me during the night.

The hermit crabs are fast becoming my favorite pets. Not only have they never awakened me at 3 a.m., they act and look dead most of the time. Nicely low-maintenance.