Settling Back In with Blogland News

Cooking really helped me settle back in domestically. I made a hearty potato-leek soup and a Flemish soup/stew called “Gentse Waterzooi”, which means “watery mess from Ghent”. Both are essentially winter and comfort foods (served hot, with heavy cream and lots of potatoes), so that also took care of our climatic shock (Singapore 85 F, 90% humidity / Boston 18F, 60%)! The dishes turned out so good, I posted their recipes on Suite101, here and here.

Another effective way of getting back in the groove is finding out what has happened in blogland while I was away.

  1. Turns out Zane from Lichenology has taken his first concrete steps in local ecological activism (he lives on Vancouver Island). I always thought he was already a local activist, simply by his lifestyle.
  2. Congratulations to James Kochalka of American Elf on his becoming father a second time, to Oliver. I can’t believe I missed the event! I’m a daily reader of his comic, of which each current strip can be viewed for free. I will gladly pay the the small subscription so I can catch up!
  3. Rebecca at Irish Sally Gardens has broken out their homemade air dried ham and it was a success, though not on first sight. What a commitment to sustainable homesteading!
  4. At A Foothill Home Companion, little Aidan is struggling with school – something I relate to with Amie, who still can’t be her own little self when at daycare. I’m holding my breath about what preschool will bring (we are interviewing for one this Friday). I’m sure we’ll be taking mental health days too.
  5. Winter has set in at SouleMama’s, where the christmas tree is getting decorated by many hands. Here we won’t have a tree (no room), but we will have some decorations and lights. But first we are going to a Sinterklaas party. 
  6. Madeline at Barn-Raising and Angie at Children in the Corn are each dealing with Christmas in their own ways.
  7. I love the winter shots at Little Red Caboose: kids in winter are so photogenic.
  8. Ryder at BlueYonder turned 3. I love reading about kids a little bit older than Amie: it helps me see what’s around the corner!
  9. And Chase at Swallowfield turned 7, wow (can’t imagine that, yet)! i love Jennifer’s artwork (look at this spread). In fact, all these Mamas are so incredibly creative!
  10. I’ll have to take the mitten tutorial at Write, Mama. Write very soon, as none of Amie’s gloves seem to stay on for very long.
  11. I made a new friend: Anja at Middlemonth. Het little Thumki is full of surprises! Amie also went to see dolphins, you know, in Singapore. She had the same look Thumki that had when watching them.
  12. On the home front, MamaStories got a Page Rank! Yeay! I guess over three weeks of absence improves once ranking.
  13. On the downside, not one good sentence was written on my novel – those darn monkeys!

Now if only our sleeping pattern normalized! We’ve been waking up around 4:30 am and getting up around 5. I don’t really mind, because those early morning hours are kind of cosy, and thankfully the heating in our condo is already on, so down here in the basement it’s warm and cosy. If only I weren’t a wreck by 8 pm.

Next post: what Amie learned, and what Mama learned, of airplanes and airports, malls in Singapore and money in India, and so much more.

Home Again and heavily Jetlagged

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!

Crafting: Tearing and Gluing

Amie and the gluestick (c) Katrien Vander Straeten

(Concentration)

Amie has taken a fancy to the glue. She has “glued” before: we put glue all over a sheet of paper and she stuck bits of paper and other things to it. But this time she wanted to glue.

This meant first tearing up a page out of a magazine. We were both of us, I think, rather surprised that it was the first time she had torn anything (on purpose), and that tearing paper doesn’t come naturally (but then, what does?).

So we had fun getting the hang of tearing first, and then Amie set to gluing. In the end I was the only one sticking the pieces onto the tree (in case you are marvelling over the even distribution of pieces). But Amie would have gone on putting the glue on for hours if I hadn’t pointed out our art work was finished.

So we’re crafting now, she and I together! It’s so much fun and I am beginning to (re)acquaint myself with the many craft-with-kids blogs out there.

Amie and the gluestick, result (c) Katrien Vander Straeten

(The result)

Wendell Berry is my hero

Mama and Amie picking flowers (c) Katrien Vander Straeten

Thanks to Moonmeadow Farm, this is Wendell Berry’s poem “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” from his book The Country of Marriage (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973). I hope it’s ok to reproduce it here… 

Oh but be fearless!

 So:

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry (my hero)

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

                 ~

There is so much in this poem, I won’t even try to write about it, as yet. I’ve only just discovered it, let me read a couple of hundred times first, soak it up… rest my head in its lap.

The Drawing Book for and with Amie

Stella by Mama (c) Katrien Vander Straeten

Watching this video of Sir Ken Robinson’s talk on education and creativity at TED – hilarious, insightful, engaging and (ringing) so true – and reacquainting myself with Danny Gregory’s website and books on drawing, I realized there was a gap in my approach to art and creativity with Amie.

When she draws or paints and asks me to draw something too, I always respectfully decline for several reasons. I don’t want to influence her lines with my perception of things, I don’t want to impose my sense of realism on her, and in the end I like to have a drawing that is wholly hers.

But then how will she see a drawing being made?

Ah!

So I’ve instated another book: the story/drawing/scrap book. It is a sturdy receptacle of stories told and pictures drawn by Amie, spontaneously or when asked. And every other day, I sit down, right there next to her or nearby (“what’re you doin’ Mama?”) and draw something in it.

I copy something from her favorite picture book of the moment, or I draw an object in the room or something imaginary. When she asks, I explain to her what I’m drawing, and let her watch me make lines and add color. If she wants to contribute to the drawing, she is welcome to.

This is a typical page: a note of what she said that day about the names Stella and Elisabeth, and then my copy of Marie-Louise Gay’s Stella. Amie draw some of Stella’s hair.

Stella by Mama and Amie (hair) (Tombow felt pens):
Stella by Mama (c) Katrien Vander Straeten

Amie was so inspired, she wanted to draw Stella too, “on my own page by myself”.
Stella by Amie (c) Katrien Vander Straeten

How neat to have those two interpretations of Stella next to one another!

Here’s the page we did today:

Drawing book Pooh and Piglet (c) Katrien Vander Straeten

Can you see how it is a collective effort? She chose the images I should copy, did some of the coloring in, and in the frame in the bottom right corner drew her own Pooh Eating Honey.

I interfere in only two ways: (1) I stop her from blotting everything out with black and (2) I ask her to not push my arm, pen or the book while I’m drawing.

Home Ground, edited by Barry Lopez

Cover of Home Ground, ed. Barry Lopez (c) painting by Eric Soll, Trinity University Press

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A while ago I was given a review copy of Home Ground, Language for an American Landscape. Barry Lopez, the editor, set 45 writers to writing over 850 new definitions for the terms Americans use to describe their land.

What a book! It has revived my love-affair – lately somewhat neglected -with America and American nature writers, from Rick Bass to NathanielHawthorne, from Mary Oliver to Walt Whitman, from Wendell Berry to Bill McKibben to, of course, Henry David Thoreau.

I wrote a review for Suite1o1.com that explains why I think the book is so succesful and necessary.

Itsy Bitsy Spider

Amie as Spider on Halloween 2007 (c) Katrien Vander Straeten

Amie had a blast as a spider yelling “trick or treat” and “boo!”. She insisted that the day was called “Halloween Party”, not plain “Halloween”.

I managed to keep her exposure to candy to a minimum, and she still thinks it means just chocolate. Someone offered her a lollipop and she looked at it with amazement – she had never seen one before, and probably even its unnatural neon-ish color came as a shock. I succeeded in wisking it away as “never mind, something for older kids”.

For those of you who want to learn more about Halloween, over a year ago I wrote a whole series of articles on Suite101.com about its origins, its place amongst the Fall Festivals of Death, the European take on Halloween and European alternatives. It was a fun topic to research.

Amie’s Map Book

The second project I started right after Amie was born fared better than her now defunct Baby Journal, in that it is still up and running. It is a Map Book, or Place Book.

I love maps: topographical ones, city, architectural, personal, subjective, objective, three-dimensional, temporal… you name it.

From the beginning of Amie’s life I collected and drew maps of where we live and where ever we travelled. Depending on how busy I was, I would simply paste in a tourist map I had picked up, draw one myself, and/or add commentary. There are also spreads about the wildlife and the people, and anecdotes about how she reacted to the place.

This is the page about our visit to Billings Farm in Woodstock, Vermont, over a year ago:

Amie’s Map Book: Billings Farm, VT (c) Katrien Vander Straeten

This page chronicles our trip to Europe (Belgium and Italy) in June of last year, and locates everyone in our families on the globe:

Amie’s Map Book: Billings Farm, VT (c) Katrien Vander Straeten

Here’s the spread about a magical visit to the Hall’s Pond Sanctuary in Brookline:

Amie’s MapBook: Halls Pond (c) Katrien Vander Straeten

It’s not as much work as the Journal: I put in as much time as I want or can afford. I skip visits that we make regularly, like to the Pond or the Farm, except when something special happened that needs visual representation in the form of a map.

One day soon Amie will understand the concept of a map, and she’ll make her own maps. It’s one of those many moments that I look forward to.

Children’s Books about Thoreau

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Cover of The Trouble with Henry (c) S.D. Schindler, Candlewick Press, 2005.

Cover of Henry David’s House (c) Robert Fiore, Charlesbridge Publishing, 2007. Cover of Into the Deep Forest with Henry David Thoreau (c) Kate Kiesler, Clarion Books, 1995.Cover of A Mind with Wings: The Story of Henry David Thoreau (c) Gerald & Loretta Hausman, Trumpeter, 2006.

Not content with an article on D.B. Johnson’s wonderful Henry series, I published another article today, on Suite101.com, about five more children’s books about Henry David Thoreau:

  1. The Trouble with Henry, written by Deborah O’Neal and Angela Westengard and illustrated by S.D. Schindler (Candlewick Press, 2005).
  2. Henry David’s House, words by Thoreau (gleaned from his books by editor Steven Schnur) and illustrated by Robert Fiore (Charlesbridge Publishing, 2007).
  3. Louisa May and Mr. Thoreau’s Flute, written by Julie Dunlap and Marybeth Lorbiecki and illustrated by Mary Azarian (Dial, 2002, no longer in print).
  4. Into the Deep Forest: With Henry David Thoreau, written by Jim Murphy and illustrated by Kate Kiesler (Clarion Books, 1995, out of print).
  5.  A Mind with Wings: The Story of Henry David Thoreau waswritten and illustrated by Gerald & Loretta Hausman (Trumpeter, 2006).

Read it here!