MamaStories

Amie is getting very excited about entering Kindergarten – she has an orientation on the 7th and school starts (only!) on the 10th. But she is also getting a little apprehensive. She remembers how she was comforted by a little seal doll during her first days at her preschool, and requested a new doll that  is small enough to take to school in her gigantic backpack. Thhaam obliged.

Some conversation during the project.

A: What’s that?

T: The navel.

A: The nipple?

T: No, not nipple. Navel. Belly-button.

A: And what is this?

T: Those are the buttocks.

A (smiling crazily): Yuck! Buttocks!

Oops: the hair was put on backwards!

T: Thank goodness you have two grandmothers who like stitching.

A: Oma likes stitching too?

T: Yes, she’s very good at stitching.

A: So if you die, then I’ll still have Oma… But what if you die at the same time, what will I do then?

Me: By then you’ll be able to stitch it yourself – for lack of a better answer.

Amie’s model for the face

T: She has a bit of a bald spot. Is that okay?

A: Yes, that’s what makes her so beautiful!

Meet Anya, the school doll.

A: Thhaam, this is the most beautifullest doll ever made!

Amie is at the moment in her tent, erected with sofa cushions and a sheet in our living room a couple of days ago. With the aid of a flashlight she reading aloud from an Usborne Farmyard Tales book. She has made strides reading. If she keeps it up, she’ll read fluently from, say, Henry and Mudge, in a couple of months. She is also getting better at addition and subtraction, and is “getting” the rudiments of multiplication. One of her favorite sayings these days is “seven plus seven is fourteen. That’s two times seven, you know?” She says this almost once a day. The “you know?” and “right?” are added for  emphasis, or rather coercion. They mean “don’t you disagree with me now!”

I must admit that we haven’t kept up the “bridge schedule” we had planned: 3 pages of  math (we use the average exercise book) and 3 pages of reading/writing (Explode the Code) a day. Our family life  this summer has been in a mess (in a fun way, mostly), and we’ve not been disciplined enough. Especially her writing has suffered, but I’m happy enough with the reading. She is realizing that to be able to read a book yourself is a real treasure and privilege. Now comes our task of finding good books for her.

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There has, of course, also been lots of art making. When Amie’s Dada (paternal grandfather) suggested that she become a doctor – a real doctor, not a Permanent Head Damage kind of doctor like her Mama and Baba – she immediately and vehemently protested that she was going to be an artist.

There was drawing from nature. With Thaam, the few sunflowers I managed to grow despite the squirrels and chipmunks:

The resulting drawing:

The butterfly we caught:

And Thaam (paternal grandmother) watching the fishes (love those kissy mouths):

And lots of drawing from imagination:

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and my favorite:

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Under the influence of her grandmother she has learned all the songs from The Sound of Music. I’ll try to capture her singing “Do a Deer” sometime and post it. It’s very cute, but after the fiftieth time I have ask her to sings something else.

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Amie turned five this August – we both blew out the candles because she was, of course, born on my birthday (it’s all hers now). We had a mega party (potluck). Though she was on the verge of angry tears for a moment, when I told her I had asked people not to bring presents, she bravely listened to the reasons and then agreed. Some people broke the rule anyway (grrr!), so she did get some presents, including the pottery wheel in the picture. It needed some Mama magic to make it work.

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The most important event was that magical two-week play date with her friend from New York City. One week they played and swam in Cape Cod, the next week they spent playing here at home. E. is a year and a half older than Amie and they get along so well. E at 6 is a fluent and voracious reader and that was a great model for Amie. They played intensely and when it didn’t work so well anymore they had no problem separating and finding a spot to be by themselves a bit.

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When you ask her “What will happen in September?” she’ll respond: “Pottery class with Lisa!” I enrolled her in a hand-built clay creations class with my teacher, Lisa Dolliver. Let’s see how much she will insist on working on the wheel -  wheel throwing only starts at age 11. She’ll be getting a break as it is, because the clay creations class only starts at Grade 1… Oh, and then there is, of course, also Kindergarten.

I was very happy with how this session’s pots have turned out, especially the glazing. I never seem to have any inspiration when glazing. This time around I went for a common theme: turquoise (which is matte,  as I found out last time) overlaid with a clear glaze (which makes the whole thing shiny).

Here is a video of my wonderful teacher, Lisa Dolliver. Her work is for sale at  her studio, Earth Changes, in Maynard, and her pieces are featured in the WGBH auctions (for which this video was shot).

Yesterday at the beginning of a new pottery session I got back the ten pieces I made during the last session. The glazing turned out totally different from what I thought it would be. Fortunately this ruined only one pot, as the glazing of its lid turns out not to match it. My first handbuilt piece – “a platter for garlic etc.” – is also a disappointment but then I didn’t make it with the right mindset in the first place.

I like the lidded pieces (except for the glazing on the one), and the “urn” (first picture), but for the rest I feel I am stuck in a rut, which my teacher generously calls my “voice”.  This session I promised myself to be bolder!

Amie and I spent the whole day at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. They had special kids’ activities – crafting, a scavenger hunt, a Chinese lion dance demonstration – for the holiday week. We took our time, sauntering from one activity to the other, taking frequent snack breaks, only stopping at those art works that caught her eye.

Here Amie is sketching a ceramic horse. She was very careful about the knees – one of which had to be lengthened so the horse could “nibble at it” as in the original. I love the way she drew the saddle.

Here we plonked down in front of one of the Melendez still lives. We first looked at all of them and she chose the cauliflower. We discussed the painting, how one thing is in front of the other, but when she started drawing she started left to right, the metal flask first (notice the line of light), then the pewter bowl. Then she found she had too little room for the cauliflower, but that was okay since she doesn’t like cauliflower anyway. The large brown blotch on top is actually the background, which she says she’ll fill in “later” (not going to happen).

One of the tasks in the scavenger hunt was sketching this Babylonian lion with the help of a grid. That grid really threw her off.

In the same room we found the oldest art work in the museum: a vessel in the shape of a hare from neolithic times. She was intrigued by its age and insisted on drawing it and annotating the drawing. For its age, I asked to write 8 first, then add a 0, another one, and another one. “It is so old it is very delicate and you can’t reach through the glass to reach it” (sigh of relief from Mama here) “and because it is so old it is also very tired.”

We kept the Create a Creature with clay for last. I’m afraid Mama had to get her hands dirty as well: she had to make that turtle.

I got my pieces back yesterday!

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And here is Amie, “throwing” a pot, and then inspecting.

She can’t wait to take a pottery class with my teacher!

Today is warming up into the 60s, like yesterday, but yesterday I was cowering in the pit of the second round of this darned cold. Today I feel much better. I’m baking a second bread from the dough I made earlier,  opening all the windows to air out the house, doing loads of laundry and hoping my lines will hold the weight (sheets and blankets). Maybe I’ll even get to put compost and straw on the beds. All that fresh air will do me good.

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One thing I absolutely must do today is carve the vase I made in my pottery class. I had a lot of help from my lovely teacher, so now I need to “make it mine,” as she puts it, by carving it. It will make for a lovely present, and I’m happy it will be kilned, glazed and ready before the holidays. I’m thinking a fine botanical pattern winding all around…

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Here’s a thing I like  a lot, how life, family (multi-generational too), work and business share one smallish space (1200 sq.f.).

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{later}

1. carve pot – v
2. laundry – v
3. bread – v
4. air house – v
5. rake tons of leaves – v
6. compost and straw on beds – nope

After being slowed down for the so-manieth time when running out the door by having to collect all of Amie’s desired art materials, I decided to make a field bag, like the one on Camp Creek Blog. One of DH’s ruined khakis served just fine, and the sewing machine cooperated.

I just cut out a piece of a leg to the height we wanted (the largest sketchbook) plus extra for the seams. I turned it inside out, stitched the bottom together and seamed up the top all around. I cut a back pocket out of the pants and sewed that onto the front. Then I cut a narrow strip along the seam of the other leg for the shoulder strap, stitched along the other side, then turned it inside out, and sewed each end to the bag.

What’s in it?

Maybe I can make one for a girl whose sixth birthday party we’re invited to, to stuff with art materials like these. That would make a neat homemade Christmas present for kids and adults alike. I could embroider something special but simple on the front to make up for the messy seams. And I’m going to need one too. I like the second bag Lori made, which integrates the back and the side pockets: I’ll try that next!

My first attempt at making a costume or even a piece of clothing. Amie chose the fabrics for the cape and the skirt and patiently tried it on at several stages. I sewed it together on my machine, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying, but mostly laughing. If there was a prize for the crookedest hem… But it all held together through much dancing, crawling and getting up and sitting down again.

The hat was going to be the trickiest part, as all our fabric was so flimsy. A friend, hearing of my predicament, gave us this hat (with hair attached) as a backup, in case the one I made failed to pass muster. DH however showed it  to Amie before I could even attempt it, and that was that.

I figure I’ll be fine with my one-stitch machine and improvisation skills as long as Amie wants to be a witch or (even easier) a ghost.  Anything beyond that, I’ll have to get some sewing lessons.

I also baked about 30 big cookies in the shape of pumpkins for the kids at Amie’s school to decorate. And Amie and DH carved the first of the big pumpkins, and we roasted the seeds.

Can you believe it’s that time of year again?

UPDATE: It’s over. I stayed home and some kids did brave our long and winding and dark driveway for our treats. Amie and DH went out together into the balmy and windy night, under the full moon playing hide and seek behind the clouds.  They were gone for abut two hours. Amie came home expressing her disappointment that she hadn’t managed to scare anyone. She has about 20 pieces of candy – she took one at each house – and she is so excited about them, but I know half of them won’t even get eaten. DH is putting her to bed at the moment. I can hear her constant chatter. It’ll be a long night.

I am very fortunate to have handmade items in my home. Many of them are Amie’s, of course, most of which I’ve already shown here. There are also  those made by strangers and mostly presented to us as gifts, a lot from India. The ones I want to show you here are two quilts made by my Mom and my mother-in-law (MIL). Both are fantastic crafters with needle and thread.

My Mom made this quilt a long time ago. I always covered Amie with it, in the stroller, when we went out on a chilly day. I dug it out a week ago, sewed back the plain strips on the three sides (for tucking in), and hung it in our bedroom.

This quilt was a collaboration between my MIL and her MIL, Amie’s great-grandmother, who lives in Kolkatta, India. It was made from my husband’s baby clothes and blankets that my MIL had saved. The border on the other side has “Hit Tima Tim Tim,” a Bengali nursery rhyme embroidered on it, in Bengali script and transliterated in Latin script.

Together they add cheer and warmth to our small bedroom .

Some day I hope I will have the peace and quiet – in my life as well as my spirit – to sit down and make a quilt, or an embroidery. Though I have never had the patience for any kind of needlework, and in my youth was known to look down upon it, it appeals to me now, especially if the picture in my head also has Amie in it, sitting next to me, working on her own thing. Maybe in winter we’ll attempt it.