A Running Collection

We are easily distracted by color and light and birds and sounds. It is a bit of a journey as a mother/teacher to figure out when to lure in and when to let the lines go. This education thing. It doesn't come in a box. It isn't something in a package. It doesn't have a weight or a number to judge what is or isn't happening or turning or evolving or developing within them. What is 100%? My children do not know. What is failure? They know not of that either.  I'd thought we'd paint massive blown up flowers like Georgia O'Keffee, but the cow skull caught their eye and I let the lines go. How sweet to watch them create and mix and sketch. And before then, we'd been talking about stars and I didn't have a clue that the sun was a dwarf star and that supernovas are a gravity battle between two stars until they explode. Distracted by photos from distant galaxies, the children lured me back in to their drawings of Novas and Neutrons and Variabl...

 I’m reading with Amelia “Eddie’s Green Thumb” curled in tight balls on the couch while the boys pull out all things with wheels and build and push and pull and argue until William finds an 18 wheeler and piles into the curled cuddle and turns arms and legs into roads. Little wheels tickle my arms and I remember thinking, before I had to boys, that this is what having boys meant. Becoming a road. A train. A horse. A cowboy. I’ve already hollered “neigh” and “neigh” again at intervals throughout the day. The tickly wheels are a respite. Amelia and I chuckle and smile and stay focused on Eddie and his friend’s as they put all their energy into a massive garden project. The story in an old book in a discarded book pile along the way somewhere. It was going to be hard to follow Dr. Dolittle, but we have and Amelia can read this one on her own. She has mostly. When I have to stop, then she picks it up and keeps on going. Less than a chapter left to go. Dr. ...

We spent an October weekend in Georgia visiting friends while George and his band, Border Hop 5 played all over Athens. It was a lovely weekend, except for the slight hiccup with coconut. Apparently,  William is horribly allergic to coconut. I noticed, when I took his picture with the popsicle, that he was holding his neck and that he had welts on his face. We had to rush to ER as his eyes swelled shut. A big needle and a pocket full of Epi pens later, we were back at the show! I big scare, but all is well.  DON'T GIVE WILLIAM COCONUT EVER!!!!  Amelia lounging and listening to Border Hop 5 in Athens  Crazy Wild Picture of Border Hop 5  Friends   Sweet friend Hilda and George Wilder chatting away William, before we realized he was about to go into anaphylactic shock. DON'T EVER GIVE WILLIAM COCONUT!!!

We do a lot of collecting around here. Experimenting. Observing. Watching. Discovering. Baking.  Amelia built a terrarium. She wanted badly to have some reptiles to take care of that didn't die. We collect moths by the lights at night and crickets by day. The plants are blooming and growing.  Amelia has a specimen table. She collects where ever she goes. It gives little things a place to land. Then we will sort and figure and take note.  What floats and why? It seemed easy at first, but a day later, a long lesson with daddy that she was determined to finish, ended with piles of charts on density and volume and now she understands why a ship will float and a BB will sink.  And George Wilder sinks BBs into cans and milk jugs. While Amelia watches the terrarium.  And the boys help with dinner while Amelia collects more seeds for her seed project.

I used to get Pottery Barn magazines in the mail. They started arriving when we moved into our first home. We had been married for three years already. Home had been a huge gray suitcase, two backpacks, and our Volkswagon van. Suddenly, we had walls. Walls, apparently, need to be a certain color and have appropriate hooks and frames and vases placed perfectly with books and plants and rugs and chairs. Well, we were just out of grad school and didn’t have a dime -- why did they give us a loan to buy a house? It just so happens that my sister moved the same weekend we did and she had some furniture that wasn’t moving with them. We all know what that means. It wasn’t Pottery Barn, but it didn’t have a price tag and it was piled in the back of my dad’s truck and attached trailer and in my driveway; so, it was meant to be. Unloaded, and placed, it sort of filled the house. We didn’t even have a floor in the kitchen at that point, so a couch and a bed and a dresser ...