The Tooth Fairy Responds

Mother's Day

It was a beautiful Mother's Day here, and we hope it was where you are, too. Andy and Elise let me sleep in this morning, which was a treat in and of itself given that our girl has taken to getting up around 6am. After a nice lie-in, I was greeted with a "Happy Mother's Day, Mommy!" followed by Andy carrying a big tray laden with a scrumptious breakfast. Complete with a rose freshly cut from the garden. Major style points for that one.

Breakfast was pancakes with homemade blueberry syrup, veggie sausage, apple cinnamon muffin, Ranier cherries AND coffee in the special mug Elise made for my birthday. (Look, it says "Mom" on the bottom. No way-it says "woW!" No it doesn't!) Tucked under the plate was a book all about falcons, my newest obsession. What a beautiful treat. To top it all off, at the end of the meal Andy presented me with the nutrition information for everything so that it would be easy to count for my Weight Watchers points. I was in high fiber, low fat heaven.

When Andy and Elise were out and about yesterday, I suggested that they look for a bird house kit that Elise could put together. The houses looked a little complicated, but they found a perfect little feeder. After breakfast, we headed outside to build! This kit was nice because it had holes started for the nails and very simple instructions. Elise was awesome with the wood glue, and liked using the hammer. Some of the nails were tough to pound, but she stuck with it and got them all in. It was beautiful to see the look of satisfaction on her face when she realized she had done it all on her own.

And, since this was a kit for kids age 5 and up, they included paint! Behold-



And here is the finished product, as seen from outside:

And, a closer look from inside. Yes, I really did hang the holder crooked on the window, and yes, I really did have the feeder itself hung crooked. We'll just pretend the birds like it better that way. ;-)


I suppose one could ask for a better Mother's Day than this, but I'm not sure how it could possibly be delivered.

The running theme around here these days appears to be loose and missing teeth. Elise is hilarious without her top two front teeth. She's got just the tiniest bit of a lisp. Today, she lost one of her bottom teeth. That makes FIVE teeth for this five-year-old.

Loyal readers will doubtless be shocked, shocked I tell you, to learn that our girl is a bit of a smartypants. We, of course, have no idea how she got this way. Before she went to bed, Elise wanted to write a note to the Tooth Fairy. I hope she doesn't wake Elise with uproarious laughter when she reads this:


And the back of the note:


Mostly, Elise likes the idea of saying silly things. But I think a little part of her also figures that if the Tooth Fairy is going to the effort to bring her something, the least she can do is thank her with a good laugh.

Five years of motherhood and I'm always amazed. Thank you, my wonderful husband and daughter.

Better Gardening through Facebook

There is something about the springtime that makes me want to take care of little, growing things. Since we're not in the market for babies, cats, puppies, guinea pigs etc. right now, plants are the latest victims of my affections. (This is going somewhere, I promise.) Unfortunately, our entire yard appears to be falling victim to fungus, spider mites and maybe even some aphids. Because our soil is so very clay-ish, drainage is a problem and my winter plantings have felt it. Root rot is not good for peas, apparently.

So, I want to grow stuff we can eat, but all of the existing beds are full of disease-ridden flowers planted in heavy clay. Luckily, I have amazing powers of perception and was able to notice the vast stretches of grass that will need watering while we're on water rationing this summer. Hmmmm...

My solution is to build raised beds. They're a little easier to tame than the hard-packed clay, and I can put them in the sun that they are going to need. With a teensy bit of distance from some of the other diseased foliage, I figure my seedlings will have a fighting chance of getting started and healthy before we have to deal with disease too much.

I'm handy with tools, but not that handy. So, there I was, messing around on Facebook one night, looking at an ad for "Kiwi collars." They're really just sturdy lumber hooked together with galvanized hinges, but I loved the notion that they require no sawing, drilling, nailing, etc. So, I talked it over with the landlady (who says it's okay to put them on the lawn as long as we return it to grass when we leave) and with Andy and placed my order. Happily, they ship from a distributor in South SF, so I got to take a nice little drive to pick 'em up and didn't have to pay shipping fees. Oh, and I got them today after placing my order today. For the record, the Mainfreight people up there are super nice.

This is what my driveway looked like at about 3pm today:


My initial plan was to lay hardware cloth under the frames to keep out varmints like gophers, but I gave up on that when it started raining. And then got very hot and sunny. And then sprinkled again. But had I been clever, that's what I'd have done. I'll save the stuff for something else-maybe a cover for strawberries.

The collars are individually flat-packed for shipment to the US, which was a little off-putting at first. Then, I realized that I'd need to lay something under the frames to kill the grass anyway, and the boxes turned out to be a perfect fit!





Assembly required no effort, and the cardboard made it easy to slide things around until I'd found an aesthetically pleasing arrangement. Note how thoughtfully I left plenty of space for the gardeners to push their mower between the boxes when they come every other week.



Pretty, right? The boxes are 40"x48"x7. They are each filled with 6 cubic feet of "garden soil" and 1 cubic foot of compost, all from the neighborhood hardware store. (Yes, I bought compost-I didn't have enough of my own ready yet, having used a bunch last weekend.) We should get some nice food out of this! Maybe by the weekend we'll be able to plant some of the seedlings I started inside:


So, I found my perfect garden boxes on Facebook. I am also a fan of Square Foot Gardening, which is the general guideline I'll be using. It's a method that makes a lot of sense, and lends itself well to boxes like this. Look for more posts as our food gets growing!

And, if you're like me and need something small and fuzzy to dote on during the spring, I recommend San Jose's peregrine falcons!

Death and Preschool

I had meant to get back on the blogging wagon, so to speak, when things turned upside down last Monday. Elise's preschool teacher of nearly 2 years died. This did not seem to have as much effect on Elise as we might have thought, which I guess is good. Knocked me for a loop, though. I chose this particular school because of Linda. She was an amazing teacher who kept curious kids exploring. Elise's favorite subject at school due to Linda's classroom design is math. How cool is that?! Whenever Elise sees an insect and excitedly says, "Look at this cool bug-can I touch it?" and then picks it up to play with, I thank Linda. She also helped us with some of the little foibles that were getting in Elise's way and keeping her from enjoying her preschool experience. Linda "got" what was going on with our girl and got her off to a roaring good start.

Today, Elise wanted clarification about school. Wednesdays were always Linda's day off, and she commented that it isn't really her day off this week because she is dead. I agreed with her. She also noticed the picture of Linda that hangs by her classroom door-something I'm pretty sure she never looked twice at. So, she's processing this idea of permanent loss in the sort of increments that make sense when you're five. I'm glad for that, and hope I'm giving her the space she needs to do that.

Of course, because I was completely at a loss as to how to help Elise through the loss of her teacher, I did some gathering of resources. Parenting Beyond Belief has some wonderful and straightforward talk about death and grieving, and I found that helpful. I also asked one of my favorite parenting bloggers for insight, which she did beautifully right here. Thank you, RYD!

Toothless grin

Elise has traded in her snaggle-toothed look for a more, um, toothless one. Behold!
Unfortunately, this one came out in her sleep, and is presumed swallowed. We woke Sunday morning to "Uh oh. Uh oh. Uh oh!" (scamper scamper) "Guys, what did you do with my tooth?" Poor kid. She and Andy composed a very nice note of explanation to the tooth fairy, who was pretty cool about the whole thing.

No more loose teeth for awhile, or so we imagine.

More Toothy Goodness

Elise is just so doggone cute with this crazy gap-toothed grin that I'm going to just put a bunch of pictures here and let you grin right along.

Who Parents the Parents?

One of my favorite blogs struck a nerve with me this evening, and I tried to post a comment. It ended up being longer than any blog post I've written in months. "Hmmmmmmmm..." So I'm posting it here instead.

For some background on the ramblings that follow, please visit A Reluctant Mom. I'll wait here.

You've read it, right?

That is one crazy playdate. Kids are easy-it's figuring out what the heck to do with their parents that's hard. I know this because I'm a parent and I'm pretty sure I have exasperated a hostess or two in my time. So, from my heart, RYD, here's my response.

*******

RYD, you're too nice.

"I'm sorry, I am not prepared to accommodate more than one friend this afternoon. I'm sure the girls will be disappointed, but if this afternoon is not going to work for you we can certainly reschedule."

"Please don't put shoes on my clean tablecloth!"

This woman sounds like "one of those" who lives in chaos by choice. She probably doesn't even realize she's such a drain on everyone around her. In her past life, she probably wouldn't have put shoes on tables or invited herself for an afternoon.

You may well be one of the few people who sets boundaries with this gal. She was probably not sure what to do with specified start and end times. (Wow, it sure is hard to do playdates at RYD's house-she has rules!) She's found a way around your rules so she can stay in her comfort/chaos zone.

I can't imagine you'll be letting her so much as look at your doorstep any time soon, but if you do, stick to your guns! It's good for you, it's good for her. And if she trash talks you with the other moms, I'll bet you anything they'll all be secretly wishing they had your gumption.

As for the racism, well, words fail.

I was raised in a deliberately colorblind household, which I think was a well-meaning mistake. Imagine my surprise when I moved out of blindingly white Montana to a more normal part of the country. I thought people were people, but the first time I was called a honkey it knocked me back and gave me more existential angst than 3rd grade generally merits.

Fast forward and my kiddo figures kids are kids. But one day she notices that her best friend (recently adopted from Nepal) has darker skin and hair. As does my cousin. My girl tends to be especially fearful of anything in her environment that is different. She was pretty anxious when she first discovered this difference between herself and two of her favorite people in the world.

So we (duh) talk about it. "How do you feel about that, Kiddo?" I asked. Turns out, she was worried that darker skin meant her best friend was seriously ill. And it made her nervous to play with her friend because she didn't know if it was contagious. Dunno about you, but I'd NEVER have guessed that in a gazillion years.

Not one to rest on my laurels, I've been encouraging both the noticing and accepting of racial differences. Our favorite activity? A generic princess coloring book from the dollar store. It is now the most ethnically diverse collection of princesses ever assembled. And we've decided that they are ALL beautiful. I think it's important to keep fun activities like this on hand (or at least in mind). Teachable moments and all of that.

Chaos Lady might be the biggest racist in town, or she might be inept. "Never attribute to malice that which can equally be explained by stupidity," as my hubby's favorite saying goes. If she's wallowing in that chaos and self-manufactured helplessness in the face of small children, chances are she's just never devoted gray matter to values training. She probably doesn't think she can. Or she's a hopeless bigot.

So you can avoid this gal because she's obnoxious. Or, you can avoid her for the reason that really gets at you. She's inept. This is not your problem-it's hers!

This reminds me a lot of playing in band in high school & college. You never want to sit next to the underachiever in your section. Some of their attitude and poor habits rub off no matter what you do. I remember my head getting fuzzy about half-way through, and then irritability and inability to concentrate would set in. There's something about the aggressive underachiever that sucks everyone around them into stupidity. I didn't really get the connection until my best friend explained to me about how that works on married couples. Don't hang out with the ones who have unhealthy relationships-it'll rub off. It's not such a stretch to apply the same principle to parenting. Not that we're all one bad playdate away from shoes on the table or teaching racism in utero, but over time that sort of thing can really muck with a person's sense of normalcy.