Lucia Perillo review on Suite101.com

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It’s rare that one comes across a book of essays that grips you so tightly that, even though you’re a WAHM running after a toddler, you can’t put it down – or at least, you reach for it immediately once the toddler is asleep.

Cover of Lucia Perillo, I’ve Heard the Vultures Singing

I had never heard of the poet, Lucia Perillo, though she won many awards. I let most poetry come to me, through recommendations and lucky finds in bookstores and libraries. Perillo never crossed my path, until I was sent a review copy (unasked) of her new book of essays, called I’ve Heard the Vultures Singing.

Being a bit of a, uhm, pessimistic, no, uhm, okay, glum (sometimes) person, I was intigrued by the title. Two sentences into the book, I was hooked. It certainly lives up to its title: Perillo writes about how she lives with disease (in her case, Mutiple Sclerosis), and she does so with the darkest sense of humor I have ever seen on paper. I laughed out loud, I wowed an insight, and in the end came away with great uneasiness.

I hope I got all of that, in more detail, in my review of the book on Suite101. You can read it here. Enjoy!

I am going to scour the second hand bookstores for her poetry books.

Oh, well. If *Simon* says it!

One more follow-up on Simon Says… 

We’re at Peet’s coffee shop and Amie is on my hip while I try to order and pay. She keeps pulling on the tip jar, which is (a) full of cash and (b) made of glass and (c) very close to the edge of the counter.

I tell her three (3) times to stop it. The fourth time I get desperate and say:

– “Simon says: don’t touch the jar!”

And she stops!

She’ll listen to Simon, but not to me.

Please tell me this is a phase…

“In my oooooown bed!”

Amie in her own bed (c) Katrien Vander Straeten

I haven’t slept two nights in a row now. It’s like back in the newborn days, with one difference: Amie sleeps. But I don’t. What’s going on?

For over two years now we have been cosleepers (“sharers of the family bed”). Many time I have thought of writing a co-sleeping entry or article about how I love it, and how it is a privilege and a joy for all three of us. It is however such a complex, and emotional issue, that I never found the words for it.

Now, if I don’t hurry and write something about our it, I might never do so, because…

On Saturday we bought Amie a bed.

Well, a mattress, really, crib-sized, since an actual bed – even the smallest one – wouldn’t fit into our bedroom.

We had been talking about it, but not at all insisting. On occasion we asked Amie: “Do you want your own bed?”, like this or that friends of hers. She always said no, and we always let it go.

But on Saturday morning DH said: let’s go and have a look, it can’t hurt to have a look. So we drove to IKEA and roamed around the baby-toddler’s bed section. It was a propitious moment, because Amie got to witness at least two other girls, “much” older than she (5 and 6?), enthusiastically try out all the beds, voice their opinions and dreams, and choose one.

After her nap, we set up the mattress next to our own bed. We made a big deal about the sheet and the box with the books and the pillows and the blanket, and she was so excited.

“I am going to sleep in my own bed!” she kept insisting. “I have a big girl bed now.” “I am a big girl. I little bit big and a little bit small!”

Throughout the day she visits her bed – “I want to go see my own bed”. She sits down on it to read a book to her bear, or pretends to sleep  – “I woked up!” - or straightens the blanket.

We told her: “You can sleep in your own bed. And if ever you want to sleep in the big bed with Mama and Baba, that’s ok too.” We want her to know that.

But she’s all for it! She slept in it, that very evening! DH lay down next to her – it’s tiny but quite comfortable – and she went to sleep as usual. She even slept till 5 am, without waking up at all. Then I lay down next to her for 15 minutes and she was off again, till we got up.

Last night was a different story: a night terror and the fact that she had refused to take a nap in the afternoon ruined her night. When she woke up for the third time I didn’t get down but just patted her from my vantage point above her. She scootched over and patted the space next to her and said:

“Mama come down lie next to me. This is a big bed for you to sleep in too.”

I explained I wanted to sleep in my own bed, just like her. She was probably too tired to insist and went back to sleep.

But I haven’t slept at all. Our bed seems too big. There’s something missing. I keep expecting her to wake up, and she’s not within finger’s reach – she is within arm’s reach, but comparatively that is about ten times as far away than she’s used to. Than I’m used to.

Maybe writing about why I miss sharing our bed, now that it’s over – and why I think it’s a good idea right now, as long as she’s up for it – will help me sort out what I want to say about the issue…

Progress on the Novel

As you may know, I am writing a novel (in English), by the preliminary and rather misleading title of “The Potboiler”. I gave up my PhD studies in Philosophy – I had only the dissertation to go – and started writing an adventure novel! Sounds crazy, what? But (fiction) writing was something I had wanted to do since I was 14. With the support of DH, it became possible!

I wrote a novel (in Dutch) some years ago, during a long hot summer in between academic years. I had heard it said that you have to write a novel, as if you really mean it, then put it in the drawer, and then write a second one, and that one will succeed. I didn’t believe it back then, but now I do.

And now I also understand the phrase “the story writes itself”. This one does, I am not kidding. And the more I write, the easier it gets. The occasional writer’s block has more to do with life outside the story.

It’s not just me. Friends have read it, some of them professional readers, readers of the genre (adventure thriller), professional writers and journalists. They all love it and believe it should and can be published.

I want to send it off to an agent soon, but I fear they will want the whole thing. I’m on Chapter 8 now – a good 250 pages into the book – and estimate there will be 5 more chapters.

In any case, I just wanted to let you know. In case I seem to have fallen off the face of the earth: I’m writing!

It feels so good to be doing what I always dreamt of doing! So good!

Amie Connects the Dots

Amie drawing at her new easel, september 2007 (c) katrien Vander Straeten

I’ve uploaded a new video to YouTube, this one of Amie (at now 25 months) connecting the dots her Baba made on paper, unwittingly writing the letters A and M (guess why those). I was quite skeptical when I saw what Baba was up to: I didn’t think she could do it. But she did it without hesitation! And now she loves the game, especially when using her new easel (above: still the old airplanes!).

This connect-the-dots game was part of a larger drawing experiment, in which she also completed a face and a house. Her placement of eyes and mouth and windows and chimneys was surprisingly accurate! I’m working on a videoclip of that and a new article in the context of the Drawing as it Develops series. It’s quite relevant to the issue of how toddlers see human bodies: whether they really see them as they draw them…

I want to do Peter Says

black and white photograph of baby thrown up in air (c) Katrien Vander Straeten

 A little update to my Simon Says Peter Says entry.

When Amie wants to play the game now, she says: “I want to do Peter Says”. Then she does what Peter says, yells “No!” and undoes it.

“I want to do Peter Says” is a strange way of asking for the game, isn’t it, because she knows it is really called “Simon Says,” and that is how she used to ask for it.

We figured it out quickly. What she really means is: “I want to do what Peter says.” That’s the game: doing what Peter says – the forbidden! – laughing real hard when we react accordingly shocked, and undoing it.

Sigh. Her love for Peter was stronger than we thought. Already she is choosing the boys who we say are bad for her. Already she is laughing at our protests!

More about those Green Diapers, again

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 Jean-Pierre, who has commented extensively on the green diaper issue, put me on to the website of Richer Consulting Services, a source for information about the disposable diaper industry.

It is quite an extensive website, where you can find information about the history, economy, manufacturing process, and ingredients of disposable diapers.

I plan at some point to have a closer look there and will report back on it, along with an update about several unanswered questions about Green Diapers in particular.

Thanks Jean-Pierre!

Amie’s Painting of Walden Pond

Amie’s painting of Walden Pond

I asked Amie to paint Walden Pond and this is the result. Again, Im not sure if this is a painting of the thing or a spelling of the word (she seems to conflate the two), but it sure is a nice work of art!

Check out Rebecca’s kids’ artworks at Irish Sally Garden!

Oh, and I’ve ordered:

  1. Teach Your Own: the John Holt Book of Homeschooling. I’m very curious!
  2. The Creative Family: How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connections, by Amanda Soule and her family, from SouleMama (it’s not out yet; I preordered).
  3. Henry Climbs a Mountain, by D.B. Johnson: we love the Henry books, and I plan to write a Suite101.com review about them soon.

Peter says, Simon says

black and white photograph of baby thrown up in air (c) Katrien Vander Straeten

  • A couple of weeks ago 

We had a long wait at the pizza place and Mama had forgotten to bring her bag of tricks – a folder with coloring sheets, crayons, puzzles, a couple of thin books, and a Manush (playmobil man).

Amie became restless – no patience whatsoever. “I want pizza! I want pizza!” and then

Baba suggested: “Let’s play a game. If Simon says it, you do it. If Peter says it, you don’t! Simon says, touch your nose.”

Amie touched her nose.

Baba: “Peter says, put your hand on your head.”

Amie put her hand on your head. Baba gave her a look.

“No-oo!” she yelled, and pulled her hand back.

And so on, until for the so-manieth time Baba indicated that she had done something that Peter had requested.

Amie: “But I love Peter!”

Baba: “You love Peter?”

Amie: “I love him!”

She gave herself a big hug.

Baba, a bit at a loss: “Okay, that might be so, but you still can’t listen to anything he says!”

  • Peter says, Simon says today

We’ve played the game on and off, usually at how request. She still immediately does what Peter says (after all, she loves him), but most of the time she realizes her mistake without the need for a look or word from us, and then retracts her action, yelling “No-oo!”

We’re teaching her to think before she acts. But I fear we are also dooming her love for Peter…

Marie-Louise Gay’s What are you doing, Sam?

Mama and Amie reading a bedtime story

  • The Sam and Stella Books

We love Marie-Louise Gay’s Sam and Stella books. Amie loves the repeated “Stellaaaaaaa!” or “Saaaaaam!” exclamations, Stella’s red hair, and Sam’s funny dog, Fred.

And, o yes, the stories – always surprising, uplifting and subtly wise – and the illustrations – delightful watercolors and pencil works of art (colorful, but easy on the eye) of adorable characters and settings.

Oh, and those settings! Stella and Sam venture mostly outside, into nature. There Sam asks and Stella answers, to the best of her capabilities, which are extensive, especially in the area of imagination.

– “Stella, can dogs read?” asked Sam

– “Yes,” said Stella. “But they need glasses.”

Even when they’re inside, they are getting ready to go out, or the outside is subtly present.

cover of What Are You Doing, Sam? by Marie-Louise Gay

  • What are you doing, Sam?

In “What are you doing, Sam?”, Stella keeps an eye on her little brother’s increasingly alarming indoor activities – that is, alarming for us, reading parents: the kids don’t worry, since there are no parents, not even a hint of them, in the Sam and Stella books.

Stella is more occupied with studying leaves and trees. My favorite illustration shows her sitting at a desk strewn with paints, tape, brushes and inks, leaves taped onto paper, and a jar with a ladybug. She is painting a tree on the right page in abook - on the left page there are notes.

Stella is my kind of girl! And the place where she lives – the rooms, the house, the natural worLd outside – is my kind of place!

The window behind her reveals that it is raining. Brown leaves are falling to the ground. It is Fall and the feeling that has been growing throughout the book – of homeliness, warmth and safety – magisterially comes together.

In the next illustration, Sam is also painting (on the wall!): in his painting the sun shines brightly, and the grass and trees are green.

In fact, I am so enamored with these books that I went ahead and wrote them up in an article on Suite1o1! Be sure to have a read!