Wed 24 Jun 2009
Our new house – bought a year ago – came with two rose bushes, and this being our first Spring here, we got to see the roses for the first time. Amie also got to draw and paint one:
The context was thus:
Grandmother sitting by, also drawing the rose, and grandfather, on the other side of the world, witnessing via webcam.
Sun 10 May 2009
In the evening Amie watched March of the Penguins. We had shown it to her about half a year ago but she wasn’t interested then. This time she was, going “oh so cute!” and so forth, but really paying attention when the little chick dies of exposure and the mother mourns over it.
- what happened to it?
- it died because it was too cold.
- but no, it didn’t get dead. Look, it’s moving, like this. [makes sad little movements with her head]
- no, sweetie, it’s dead.
- what is the mother trying to do now?
- the mother is so sad she is trying to steal a chick from another mother.
- stealing isn’t nice.
- see, the pack doesn’t allow it and the chick is back with its mother.
When we went to bed she wanted to sit in the pile of blankets to keep her egg warm. Then she wanted to talk about the penguins.
- I especially want to talk about when the chick got dead. I liked that.
- you liked it? Do you mean it made you happy?
- no.
- so you mean you are interested in it.
- yes. It’s interesting.
I had to explain again why the chick had died.
- but I didn’t see any blood.
- it wasn’t wounded, it was just too cold.
- can I have a baby penguin? It’s not too cold here.
- it’s too warm here. Penguins like it cold, but not too cold.
Seconds later:
- promise me we will die next to one another? [this while holding my head, her nose nearly touching mine, her eyes locked to mine]
- I can’t promise that, sweetie. We don’t know when we’ll die. It’s mostly not in our control.
- we could die in an accident.
- yes, or when we grow old and it’s time.
- but we don’t die on the cross. Only Jesus died on the cross. What is Jesus’ Mama’s name?
- Mary – not the Mary we know. A different Mary.
- What’s her last name?
- I don’t know.
- Jesus died and then Mary died too. They went far away. As far as… Auntie R. That was a long drive.
A little later:
- Mama, can we have another baby? But I want it to be a girl. We can call it Amie.
- but you are Amie. So we couldn’t call her Amie!
- but what if I die? And I still want to pinch your arm? [arm pinching is a leftover from nursing: she does it when tired or sad and when falling asleep]
I was dumbfounded. A weird thing, that statement: “Amie” (II) would still be pinching my arm, and that seemed to make her feel better about dying. Such a strange concept of identity, such fearless exploration of what death is and what it means to her! She soon fell asleep.
I’ve written about how I want to communicate to my daughter about death here.
Thu 15 Jan 2009
A new law will be coming into effect on 10 February, called the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). It demands that all products for children aged 12 and younger be tested for lead and phthalates, and that those that haven’t been tested yet are considered hazardous and may not be sold.
It’s about time that lead and phthalates are banned from children’s products – manufactured in the States or imported from abroad – and that the manufacturers have tests to show their safety. But this well-intentioned law suffers from two problems:
Consider that
Lead testing promises to be expensive — from several hundred to several thousand dollars per test, depending on the product. And each batch of each item must be tracked and tested, making compliance brutally expensive for items with small runs. (source)
No wonder the law in all its generality is creating a panic. For instance, for a while there it seemed as if many thrift stores and second-hand shops were going to have to close.
But there may now be good news for them. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is responsible for enforcing the law, drafted a Memo to clarify the law. “The commission does not have the authority to change the law but can decide how to interpret it” (source).
As for second-hand children’s products – thrift stores, consignment shops, and other used-goods stores:
Sellers of used children’s products, such as thrift stores and consignment stores, are not required to certify that those products meet the new lead limits, phthalates standard or new toy standards. (Memo)
How about the retailers whose entire stock is bound to become contraband? Those that sell clothing and toys made of natural materials such as wool or wood (not painted) may be off the hook, for the Commission is considering giving also them an exemption (source).
All others may have to consult their lawyers. For them too, the CPSC seems to bending the rules a little, in what to me two rather confusing paragraphs:
Does this mean (“while”) that that only those “certain product categories” should be actually tested?
Can the small shops afford to run these tests on their suspect stock? Many can’t, like Amanda Christina of Hearts and Trees, who will no longer be able to sell her homemade art, handicraft and nature study kits.
And what about children’s books, for instance? From a Boston-based article on this matter:
This Wednesday, Amazon.com sent a general letter informing its vendors that, if they did not certify their products by January 15, the items would be returned at the sellers’ expense…
To make matters worse, even publishers that have already had their products tested for lead will be forced to retest…
“All of us are totally in the dark,” says Terri Schmitz, owner of the Children’s Book Shop in Brookline. “I can’t make a decision, because I don’t know what the regulations are. We’re all sort of in limbo here.” (source)
You may even find the shelves of your childrens’ library empty…
To be continued, no doubt.
Go to Cool Mon Picks SaveHandmade for more information, resources, and a way to respond to this law.
Sat 22 Nov 2008
I’m not going to give too much away. I’m going to try. If you know us, please look away, or not too closely, or don’t look at the pictures (okay, I won’t put any pictures). Sigh…
We are making all our Christmas gifts this year ourselves and out of materials we already have (most of them trash and recycling bin bound stuff).
Funny, writing that: “all our Christmas gifts this year”. We’ve actually never been Christmas gift-givers. True, we don’t celebrate Christmas, but you know what I mean: it’s the holidays, and it’s nice to give, and receive. The reality is that I did always have the ambition to give my loved ones that something special, but when I considered the cost of treating everyone to what they deserved, I was too daunted to go ahead even for my closest friends. In the end not even DH got anything, and neither did I. :(
But now we are doing this frugal living experiment (we spend a max of $125 a week on food and all consumer goods, including books), in the spirit of the Riot 4 Austerity. And when the time to think of gifts came around, I found that I am no longer daunted! Shedding any considerations of the money cost of gift-giving has liberated me to now get to giving!
Amie and I started early, several weeks ago. We made up a list of what we could give and who we would give to. Then we started gluing and painting and drawing and cutting and sewing, oh it’s been a feast!
The cost as well as the crippling expectations have fallen away. It’s home and handmade, by myself (not known as a particularly handy or crafty person) and a three-year-old… People will just have to love it! Not that that stops me from putting heart and soul into it. On the contrary, oftentimes I find myself still at it while Amie drifted away an hour ago.
Okay, so there are some expectations, but they are not the usual ones that come with Christmas gifts (did I spend enough? is it what they expected? is it the right color? will it get lost in the pile of other gifts, more fabulous than mine?). These gifts, simply because they’re home and hand made by my daughter and I, are of a wholly different world altogether.
You’ll see…
Fri 31 Oct 2008
Yesterday one of the headlines in Google was “Economy Contracts as Consumers Retreat“. There is a nice rhythm to that phrase, don’t you think? And, also like a good line of poetry, it says a lot in the most subtle of ways. The bellicosity of this phrase reveals what we all really know about consumption in a more-is-more, me-firs, “free” market: it’s a battlefield.
Who are these consumers at war with on this field, and to whom are they losing the upper hand? And where can they retreat to, to which safe haven?
Since beginning the Riot 4 Austerity I have had some conversations with friends and family members about reducing one’s footprint. I’ve noticed a couple of things. First, that invariably the first two questions from family members are: (1) Are you in financial trouble? (2) Isn’t 64 F (17 C) too cold? No to both. That was easy.
But friends have more complicated, diverse reactions. They run the gamut of (1) a smile (you-goofy/silly-people-now-on-to-a-different-topic) to (2) “why on earth would you deprive yourself of Coke and cable”, to (3) “I really admire that but we just can’t do it like you”. So far I am ashamed to say that I haven’t made any convert, but then again I’m so non-confrontational I am probably the lamest activist you’ve ever met!
But here’s the thing: I get the sense that none of my friends are happy in their role as consumers, to which they choose, nevertheless, to cling. I have the feeling that they all long for something different than a life on the battlefield/market. I have heard them talk of their need for something spiritual, a different kind of riches. For a return to daily rituals of comfort and belonging, like they remember from their childhood perhaps (because most children, if you let them, are so naturally at home with themselves). And for time: time to be at home with oneself and one’s family, time to reflect on something beautiful, to read a book, time for friendship. Time that is not hurried, not stuffed up with stuff, but calm and warm and ample.
They want these intangibles (a nice way of avoiding calling them “things”), but they seem to deny that the only way to get them back is by taking them back from the mass marketplace. Because in my honest opinion, that’s where we have traded them in, our time most of all, for stuff, for plastics, for vapid “entertainment,” for glossy magazines and a glossier, paper thin life.
The mass marketplace where we are at war. The “economy shrinks” as we “retreat” from a battlefield: what does that mean? The newspapers and politicians and Wall Street investors would have us believe that it means that we are losing jobs, so money, so stuff, so happiness. They would have us believe that the only way to win it back is to ratchet up our consumption again, to “have confidence in the market”. They want us to believe that the enemy is the Chinese toymaker, the Euro, the Japanese car manufacturer and the Indian telemarketer. And they want it to be taken for granted that our retreat can only be temporary and that a victorious recovery just around the corner. That there is no other place to be.
But I believe that we are really at war in that field with our worst enemy: ourselves. We have been pitched against ourselves. No wonder no one can win. And even if the market recovers, “victory” is only Pyrrhic. Pyrrhus after winning one of many battles said that one more such victory would utterly undo him. It’s the same with us, only worse. I’m saying that we have already been completely undone.
I’m not just talking about global warming, peak oil, and all those “obstacles” to economic growth and ultimately, of course, our self-preservation. I am talking also of our loss of our “spiritual needs.” Yes, let’s name them: love, home, kindness, peace, and time. I believe that’s what my friends have been saying, suffering. Not the loss of stuff, but of soul.
And no marketplace is going to return these to us.
There are many other ways to recovering happiness. By avoiding the mall and the box store, and saving the money for something more permanent and less polluting to the body and the mind (a woodburning stove, in our case), or for a sense of security at least. By coming together every evening in the kitchen, cooking together and then sharing the meal at the dinner table. By congregating in the living room, telling stories and listening to music or discussing a book, and playing board games or making art together. By staying home, going for a walk in the woods and listening to the birds. By counting what we consume in energy and goods and how much we trash our planet, and reducing those. By planning our garden, our self-sufficiency.
By knowing where we stand, as a family, on that marketplace: more and more on the sideline, less and less at war with ourselves.
Wed 1 Oct 2008
I haven’t been blogging much lately. Summer at our burgeoning homestead has meant more time spent outside and in physical activities, like transplanting and planting.
There hasn’t been as much of planting as I would have wanted: just some herbs in pots and a an edible border by the side of the house (thyme). Mainly we’ve pulled out plants and weeds, moved and sifted through rotten woodpiles, dug up stones and cut down some trees (small ones, with bow saw).
We have mostly cleared the area that will be our vegetable patch next year. I’m afraid I didn’t take the earliest possible “BEFORE” picture of the jungle that was there. I really like the idea of taking pictures of the garden as it changes…
We decided to follow Mel Bartholomew’s “Square Foot Gardening” method. I very much like his engineer’s approach, and a high-yield small-space garden like that also allows us to make optimal use of what little sunlight our shaded garden allows in without having to cut down the beautiful trees. We hope to make the vegetable beds and to start building up that soil at least before the weather deteriorates even more.
What else has happened? We’ve had both sets of grandparents visiting as well as Aunts and other friends. It was real summertime, so much more treasured because we now live in this wel-lit house with this great yard and in this beautiful neighborhood. Those who visited who could make the comparison with our small, dark basement in Brookline were stunned by the difference. Even being sick – yes, of course, the second week of school, and I got it too – is more enjoyable when you can sit on the sofa with the sleeping child on your lap and look out at the trees and the birds…
Now it’s just the three of us again. It’s strange, for me at least, because our first guest arrived a week after we moved in, and we’ve head a constant stream since then. It feels now like I have to make myself “at home” all over again…
We also started the new school year, and of course there has been a lot of drawing, writing, and crafting, but about which in another post!
Tue 12 Feb 2008
This just in:
Rock-n-Romp, a kid-friendly rock show series, is coming to Boston. R-n-R founder Debbie Lee is coming up from D.C for the Boston kick off and she is bringing Neal Pollack, the author of Alternadad with her.
They will perform with Boston Music Award nominees the Bon Savants and the psychedelic rockers Wonderful Spells, who promise to play for you, live, the kind of music you listened to BEFORE YOU HAD KIDS. This while also keeping your kids engaged: they can watch the band, experiment with instruments, dance or just run around and hang out in a safe and friendly environment.
And Neal Pollack is going to read from his all-too-close-to-home book Alternadad. There will be more literariness from author and illustrator Jarrett J. Krosoczka, who won Child’s Magazine “Best Books of the Year” in ‘05 for his book Punk Farm.
WHEN: Sunday, February 24, 2008 from 3pm-6pmWHERE: Great Scott, 1222 Commonwealth Avenue, Allston, MA 02134
TICKETS: $8.00* in advance or $10* at the door. *Each ticket admits one adult and one child. NEAT: An adult must accompany child and a child must accompany an adult. Get tickets via Rock-n-Romp Boston or Ticket Web.
See you there, perhaps?
Thu 20 Dec 2007
DH is the one who drops Amie off at daycare in the mornings on his way to work. Every morning I rush him/them. Amie by now knows the mantra: “I need to go to office, Baba needs to go to office, Mama also needs to go to office, in the study!”
(This concept, by the way, of all three of us having to do a good job at our respective “offices” really helped her change her attitude about daycare.)
That’s how it is, folks. The moment they’re out of here I rush to the study and start writing on my novel – and occasionally, when inspiration is low or I need a break, on this here blog-thingie. The moment I started realizing the novel might actually bring in some money, I really started considering it as “a job”.
(Note the difference between job and work. The writing was always “work” and therefore worth it, vauable, praiseworthy, proud… But in this society, once work becomes lucrative, the worker gets to have more say - whether I like it or not).
So this morning it was 8:30 (the time daycare opens) and DH was still in his PJs, checking his email on his laptop (“It’s urgent: it’s work!”). I rushed him – in these cases I don’t mind the nagging – and he laughed and said: “You do this thing in the morning: kicking us out!”
And I said: “You bet I’m kicking you out! My working day just started and you’re still here on my time!”
Don’t worry, it’s all said in a cheerful tone, but this morning I realized that I was also very serious. And so did DH, I think…
Amie in the meantime was drawing Boo again:
Mon 10 Dec 2007
This morning I told Amie L would come and play with her while Mama also went to office. L iz her favorite assistant at daycare and the only one to have babysat her, once before.
She cried for a minute and asked me to stay. I said I could stay a little bit. She asked could I stay a more bit, a much bit? I promised half an hour, which she considered and then approved, though she wasn’t convinced. It didn’t matter. L came in at 9 and Amie was so excited to see her he jumped and chattered nonstop, showing L all her toys. She even asked me to leave, already, for office!
It was almost guilt free.
I left after the promised half hour and risked life and limb on the slippery sidewalks. Potential ambulance ride and trip to the ER: $1000.
I did spend some time (15 minutes) browsing at our local independent bookstore, the Booksmith. Babysitter while I “relaxed”: $4.
I made it to Peets unharmed, where I purchased a scone and a latte to justify my presence there: $4.64. (If the babysitting doesn’t bankrupt us, Peets will.)
4 hours of babysitting at $15: worth it, because of the other side of the ledger.
When I returned home with lunch for everyone, L had even done the dishes. She did this the first time she came, and I had reminded myself to absolutely forbid her to do it again – for of course we had dishes! But I forgot in the whirl of leave taking and kisses and searching for cell phone and gloves.
So, yes: not wholly guiltess, but so worth it!
Sinterklaas, you ask? It didn’t happen. Amie’s cold was much worse yesterday – one kid’s runny nose, you know, is Amie’s bronchitis. She was also disappointed. Sinterklaas comes to New England only one day a year. She will have to make do with Santa Claus, who – in all honesty and with my apologies to the Americans – is a sorry excuse for Sinterklaas! (You can read more about that here.) Next year…
Sun 2 Dec 2007
We returned on Friday evening from Singapore (that’s a non-stop 18-hour flight to Newark, a 3-hour layover, a 36-minute flight to Boston and a 30-minute cabride to Brookline… it tires me out all over again, writing this!). Singapore, by the way, is 13 hours ahead of Boston.
The last two nights Amie has been waking up at 2 am, to play and chatter, wide-awake, until 5 am, when we can “force” her to sleep. About the jetlag, one thing is for sure, that coming back to the States is harder than going to Singapore: it’s easier to will yourself awake, to keep Amie up and to regulate a short mid-day nap when you arrive in the early morning, than to will yourself and to get Amie to sleep when you arrive in the late evening. The two of us slept for perhaps 4 hours during the trip, but Amie slept more, so we’re not on the same track.
First up in terms of shock was the weather: moving from sultry Singapore to cold and blustery Boston was painful, especially since we missed the run-up to winter.
Second, our basement flat felt warm and cosy, but so dark compared to the 22nd floor where my parents-in-law stay. And it was, most of all of course, empty. Amie doesn’t talk about them not being here with us, but she calls them up on her “phone” and has long conversations with them, so they are on her mind.
And I dislike unpacking, dealing (or not) with the stuff and junk and laundry, the food gone bad in the fridge, the lack of milk for a comforting cup of tea.
Clearing away the junk, shopping for food, and cooking are the best ways to settle back in. Today I cooked a hearty leek-and-potato soup and also “Gentse waterzooi”: a chicken soup-stew. Recipes and more about our trip soon!
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