The Bed Monster

There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.  ~Andre Gide

 

Monsters seem to inhabit children's rooms. My eldest is worried about these wee beasties that go bump in the night -- in the dark, his hearing improves and suddenly every thump and bump is something to jump at. Then, the other night, his little brother provided a momentary respite:

Bedtime discussion:

Youngest brother: The bed monster is here!

Older: NO! DON'T! THAT SCARES ME!

Younger: You don't have to be scared of the bed monster.

Me: Honey, if he says it scares him, then please lets not talk about it.

Younger: But he doesn't need to be SCARED! The bed monster is not scary!

Older: He is a green blob with red eyes and a scaley tail!

Younger: Yeah, but he has no arms and no legs.... (a pause) and no nose and no ears and no mouth AND (triumphantly) he doesn't eat little boys! He only eats clothes and stools which he spits out in unexpected places!

Me: OH! Is THAT why I am always tripping over stools?!

Older: (Stifles a snicker) No, I keep moving them.

Younger: No, you move them and then the bed monster eats them and spits them out somewhere else.

Older (Curious despite himself): Does he ever get splinters?

Younger: Not anymore. He used to when he ate wooden stools but he prefers plastic.

 

 

 

Summer time Fun

The other day, as a break from the endless packing and cleaning that have filled our weekends, we decided to take our two sons to the Camlann Medieval Village. The last time we went we saw a joust and archery from horseback competition, a cider press, and strolling jonglers. My sons were younger then...

 

This weekend the events were different: No joust and the archery was done afoot rather than astride. There was no cider press -- it is too

Desire and the source of learning

Desire, like the atom, is explosive with creative force.
Author: Paul Vernon Buser

Meet our ocean alien -- a little bitty creature, smaller than a dime, looks remarkably like a carbon atom. We saw this bitty beast while exploring the coast of western washington. My sons called it an 'alien' but truly, given the importance of carbon to our world (we are, after all, carbon based life forms), this creature is perhaps less 'alien' than we might think.  Nature is amazingly conservative at times.

 

Now I have been thinking about creativity, atoms and the power of desire -- this last element is crucial, after all, to the learning process. Someone with no desire to learn something most often won't... or will learn something unintended by the teacher.  I was reminded of that while reading the book, Soft-Spoken Parenting: 50 Ways to Not Lose Your Temper With Your Kids. There are those who will not look at the book (the book is aimed at a Mormon audience) but I have and I will say, many of the suggestions are very sensible. Amongst them is the comment that yelling and punishing do not teach a child about the topic at hand but rather that adults yell and punish. How one person views an event is rarely the way someone else does. Ever read the The Complete Father Brown Stories (Wordsworth Classics) (Wordsworth Collection) ? G.K. Chesterton, who writes very well, makes this point repeatedly: every person, every individual sees and experiences life differently. A group of people may be present at the same event but what they see and what they remember will be very different. In  the Soft-Spoken Parenting: 50 Ways to Not Lose Your Temper With Your Kids, the author emphasizes learning what it is that the child believed to be the truth BEFORE making a decision about appropriate responses.  Moreover, the author acknowledges that anger and frustration are a normal experience in parenting -- but he points out that just because feelings are common, that does not mean that responses that flow from those feelings are necessarily right or acceptable. The author offers a host of quite useful suggestions as to how one can handle difficult situations appropriately... and how to teach the lessons that you want to teach, rather than teaching something else entirely.

 

But more important than the teacher is the student: the source of the desire. If there is a desire to learn, the student will learn. If that desire is lacking, so shall the learning be. My eldest taught himself to read, more or less, because he wanted to know what happened in a particular book. His fascination for the story -- though by some standards 'twaddle' led him into another world and he has never looked back. Now my youngest wants to learn to read -- truth to tell, he already knows a great deal. He recognizes many words and has been known to correct me if I misread or miss entirely a word in the text. So... how to teach him? From watching him, I see that he has a passion for writing and for patterns. That seems to me to be the road to follow. We are going to use a program called 'Spell to Write and Read'. (Spell to Write and Read) this fall.  I am actually looking forward to trying out this curriculum but then  I have always loved to create patterns and, in some sense, that is all that writing really is.

 

So if learning comes easiest when there is a desire to learn, how does one deal with those 'lessons' that are of no interest? T.S. Eliot once wrote: "No one can become really educated without having pursued some study in which he took no interest. For it is part of education to interest ourselves in subjects for which we have no aptitude." Thomas Jefferson agreed with him yet I think that they both missed something. In the early stages of education, it is the passion to learn that must be encouraged. Learning to study that which is of less interest comes best and most completely when one has learned the discipline of study through the desire to study. Once that desire has been burned deep into the bones of our soul, then the understanding and willingness to pursue less interesting topics is much easier. Discipline is best sowed where Desire has readied the soil. [I think I am reading TOO much!]

 

The Joy of Boys

If you want to make God laugh, just try and make plans for the future.
- Ron Litzler


This quote is so right on the mark! Yesterday, I planned. I planned with great care and forethought. I knew that I was going to take little boys to a park near a river so I bought them rubber boots. But I planned without remembering the nature of little boys.

We arrived at the park. The boys were all set, rubber boots tramping away. Xander was even wearing his beloved Fire Marshal rain coat. Down to the rushing Cedar River.

"Now you can walk in the river," I said, "But not too deep. There is a strong current. And don't go into..." Too late, in they plunged, water well up over the top of their boots.

C., our visiting friend, looked at me in indignation. 'THERE IS WATER IN MY BOOTS!!!' he roared. Xander grinned. 'Mine TOO!' he shrieked in delight.

"Okay" I said, " Come out of the river. Sit, SIT, SIT!!! down on the bench' (This as they both attempted to stand one legged in the river to remove the boots.) Pull off your boots and...'

C yelled even louder 'MY SOCKS ARE WET!' I looked at him for a long moment. 'Yes," I agreed,'that is what happens when you get water in your boots." "I can't wear WET SOCKS!' he told me. 'So, take off the socks and the boots, put the socks in the boots...' 'BUT THE BOOTS ARE FULL OF WATER!' I sighed. 'Dump the water out first, then put the socks in the boots.' "BUT THE SOCKS ARE WET!" I looked at him, sighed deeply and said 'The boots won't mind. They are wet too.' 'OH.' he thought about that a moment. Then I said 'You can go into the river barefoot.' 'YEA!' all three boys were for this and off came the boots and socks in a fury of wet.

'Roll up your pants legs' I said in a last stab at hope. They did and charged back into the water. C, having gotten out knee deep shrieked 'THE WATER IS COLD!' and then looking down at his pants "AND NOW MY PANTS ARE WET!' I grinned a little. 'Yes, the water is cold. You could put your boots back on... without wet socks. And your pants were already wet...' Xander, who had been bending over to examine a rock, leaned back in an impossible position and somehow managed to get his entire backside soaked... without soaking his front. Jason, meanwhile, was happily clomping around in the 'COLD' water, soaked to his hips and examining the bottom.

C came out, intent on collecting his boots. At the shore, he discovered mud and spent several minutes squishing it between his toes before rinsing his feet off. Then up to the table to collect his boots only 'MY FEET ARE DIRTY!' Sigh. "Carry your boots down to the shore. Rinse your feet in the water then put on the boots.' He did and clomped out again... 'MY BOOTS ARE FULL OF WATER!' Sigh and double sigh.

Xander had been watching this and collected his boots. He took them down and washed THEM, then washed his feet, then debated how best to put on the boots. He got them on, clomped out, got them FULL of water and with a delighted shriek, slogged over to a log. There he climbed up and, standing on the log, took off his boots, dumped the water ('Did you SEE? MOMMY? I gave the water back to the RIVER!') and, replacing his boots, climbed down off the log to go examine river rocks. This repeated and repeated. Meanwhile, C kept getting his boots full of water, shrieking that they were full, climbing onto the shore, dumping water, squishing mud, rinsing feet and replacing boots. Through all this, Jason serenely waded about, almost entirely soaked, now and then wearing boots full of water and thoroughly pleased with himself.

C had fixated on his wet pants. 'I want to take my pants OFF!' he announces. I tell him, 'When we get back to the car, you can take off your pants but it is not allowed to take them off in a public place.' 'But they are WET!' he points out. I agree. 'Yes, they are wet. That is what happens when you wade deep into a river.' He humphs at me but is disinclined to leave the river.

After about 1/2 an hour, all three boys were beginning to get cold and hungry so I suggested we go home. 'but our SOCKS AND BOOTS ARE WET!' C roared. I smiled. 'You can walk barefoot and carry the boots but the rocks may be a bit sharp.' 'YEA!' yelled the boys and started out of the water. Jason, careful as always, collected his boots and (of course) filled them with the rocks that he had collected. Xander, seeing this, did the same. C, meanwhile, was screeching ahead, yelling 'I walk BAREFOOT on rocks ALL THE TIME!' Hmm...

So we start back. Sure enough, before too long I hear C 'THESE ROCKS ARE SHARP!' I look over at Jason who is walking tentatively across the rocks. 'Put your feet flat down instead of rolling your feet.' I suggest. 'It will be less pokey that way.' Xander, at the back of the pack, is struggling mightily to carry his rock laden boots while walking barefoot over rocks. I dropped back to take his boots from him. 'How're you doing?' I ask. He smiles sunnily at me and says, as if it were news 'I'm all wet and sandy.' Yes.

As we walk towards the parking lot, we see a man and woman approaching. They are smiling and pointing at the boys and talking. When we get close enough, I say 'I don't know why I bothered to get them rubber boots!' The man grinned and said 'Yeah, we were just discussing that.' Hmmmm....

Once back at the car, boots loaded in the trunk, the three boys strip down to underwear. I watch in amazement as they deposit half the river bed of mud on the ground near the car. 'You brought back half the river.' I gasp. Xander grins wickedly and says 'I like being wet and mostly naked. Can I stay this way?' C, ever proper, tells him firmly 'NO! When we get home you will get DRESSED!' Ah, to be 6 and to KNOW the way! Then he looks at me and says reproachfully, 'I am COLD!' Before I can say anything, Jason, who always seems to be the voice of moderation, smiles sunnily and says 'Once we are in and buckled, Mom will turn on the heat and we won't be cold anymore.' Marching orders given, all three boys load up, I do too, heater is turned on and we head home.... sigh... why did I bother with boots? Oh yes, they were needed to carry ROCKS!

Shaking the Shakespeare Tree

It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by.  How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?  For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone.  That is where the writer scores over his fellows:  he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.  ~Vita Sackville-West

 

    To capture the moment: That is the gift of words, of film, of art in its many forms. It is the reason I write and draw. But more than just capturing the moment, writers write to capture the spirit of the moment, the place, the time. And their words are powerful.

 

     So what is the power of the word? We watched As You Like It , an HBO/BBC production with Kenneth Brannagh's Shakespeare crew. Wonderful. Both boys loved it. So did I, though periodically, I had to dive out of the room, the play was so silly. But its effect: now that was interesting. That afternoon, we had a friend over. He is six and had not seen the play/movie -- nor to my knowledge has he ever seen any Shakespeare production but he was game. Jason was charging around the yard, creating his own play -- using Shakespearean English and timing and thoroughly amusing himself. Our friend, who quite admires Jason, watched for a bit then shouted 'Do you want to see MY Shakespeare play? It is called 'The Revenge of BOO BOO!' (Somehow I think he confused Shakespeare with 'Star Wars' -- LOL) For my sons, the word woke their own imaginations. And their words sparked their friend's ideas.

 

     Truly, though, I am becoming more and more convinced that what we read/watch/listen to shapes our perceptions, our speech and our actions. Such ideas are not new. Thit Nhat Hahn has commented on this, for example -- talking about the effect of violent shows. And there exists a large body of evidence that indicates that children who watch violent shows become deadened somewhat to the implications of guns et al. Horrible thought. Of course, that makes me wonder about some of the books that I was required to read in High School -- not a funny one amongst the lot, only grim and horrifying: Lord of the Flies, Bless the Beasts and the Children, A Rose for Emily. GAWK. Awful stuff. Why don't they require works by people like Mark Twain? Oh, we read 'The Jumping Frog of Calavares County' from an anthology but I never knew, until much later, that he had written a host of short stories. My father read us The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain Library) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when my brothers and I were little and I later reread them on my own. On a trip to England, I found a copy of The Complete Mark Twain Collection (Over 300 works, with active table of contents) in a shop. I carried that book with me all over Europe and Twain, with his acerbic wit and clever insights, kept me grounded. So why isn't Twain a required part of reading?

     There are so many wonderful writers out there and not all of them are grim and gloomy. Perhaps I am odd in my preference for the lighter stuff. It is not that Twain does not speak of serious matters. Anyone who has read Huck knows that Twain had very strong views on issues such as slavery. But Twain, like Bill Cosby today, puts human behavior into perspective. He offers his insights with wit and a measure of kindness, something that writers like William Faulkner often fail to do. So here is what I think: I think I shall have to create, for my sons, a 'required' reading list that highlights the good in humanity. We have already started there. We read and watch Shakespeare -- and he is very clever and insightful... Think, for example, of my sons' favorite line from 'Much Ado About Nothing' -- 'For Man is a Giddy thing'.  Boys certainly are!

 

     What would be on such a list? Well, Twain and Shakespeare, of course, But then too, I should add things like The Brendan Voyage: Across the Atlantic in a Leather Boat . Who needs The Swiss Family Robinson (Signet Classics)or Robinson Crusoe (Norton Critical Editions) when one can read about a real adventure. Don't get me wrong: Both SFR and RC are wonderful reads -- and read in context of their time and history, they are valuable. It is interesting, though, to read a novel that references RC, something like Elizabeth Speare's  The Sign of the Beaver.

 

     I know that this latter book is not approved by Oyate. The critique of the book by Doris Seale is interesting and the points are well made but for me, the book did have redeeming characteristics -- as noted by the reviewer, the relationship between the boys is uneven. The indian boy is MUCH more sophisticated in the ways of survival. Without him, the settler boy would never have survived. This is in strong counterpoint to the book -- Robinson Crusoe -- which the settler boy uses to try to teach the Indian boy to read. Early on, Speares makes the point that the portrayal of Friday is deeply flawed. That the same critique is leveled at her writing is interesting but in neither case are these critiques sufficient reason to discard the books. Both books are good reads, raise many questions and used with care, can teach us a great deal about ourselves and about the past. Both books are well written and engaging. Both draw the reader into the story and excite the interest of the reader to learn more about peoples, places and events. As with all material, these books should be read with care and with awareness. If we do so, then we learn valuable things.

 

     The critiques available at Oyate are balanced by their catalogue wherein one can find a number of excellent and 'approved' books. Some of these we have read, some we have not. Of the ones that we have read, I will say that they have been lovely -- and the point made, that cultures are not interchangble, as so often happens in popular books, is clearly respected here. Each book presents material from a particular tribe and in doing so, offers up the richness of human experience.

 

   The power of words is not to be underestimated. Words, used well, take us into the world of someone else's imagination and sparks our own. Badly used or misused, words can damage and warp our view of the world. The power of the writer is to share words, ideas and images so as to capture and activate the reader's imagination. Surely this is something one should keep in mind when one writes, just as when one speaks. Words can hurt... and just as surely, they can heal.  Remember 'Man is a Giddy Thing' and given to changableness. Let us write and read with care and with appreciation.

Organizing, disorganizing and Moving house

     Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts. --Arnold Bennet, British Playwright

 The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.  ~e.e. cummings

     I am sure that somewhere in this vast universe there must be an award for the most disorganized woman. I am sure that I am in the running, perhaps passing all the leaders in a flash of speed. It will be one of the few races that I have ever won and certainly not the one I would choose if I had a choice. Have you ever had that feeling? As if someone just threw everything you own into the air, letting it fall where it will? That is my house at the moment. See, we are in the middle of packing. Why? Well, we are going to try to sell this house(in THIS market? Friends ask in amazement and horror) and buy another. Of course, we are doing it topsy turvey. We have a bid in for another house... it is something called a short sale, that step BEFORE foreclosure, so the Lender is taking its time. We don't mind that, actually. We are hoping that the Lender takes several months, enough time to pack up, clean up and at least market this house. Meanwhile, though, the house -- and our lives -- are in a state of complete Chaos.

 

Perhaps this is why we have started watching DVDs of Mel Brook's
Get Smart - Season 1 (The Original TV Series)
comedy . I still remember that immortal line when one Chaos leader looks at his subordinate (who has just immitated a motorcycle) and says firmly 'This is KAOS! We do not phfft! here!' Don't know why I loved that show but it still can make me groan and cringe and my sons adore it. Thank heavens, however, that they haven't started acting it out. THAT would be too much... on the other hand, a little light (and I do mean LIGHT) comedy is a welcomed change after the tension that packing always creates.

 

Of course, I am not the first one to recognize the power of laughter. There are quite a few articles on the subject: Laughter remains good Medicine, Laughter is the best medicine for your heart,  Laughter is good Medicine, Humor Therapy,  Laughter: The Best Medicine and the list goes on.  There are also books on the subject: THE LEARNING POWER OF LAUGHTER, The Healing Power of Humor etc. 

 

So why, I wonder do schools seem to think that Great Literature has to be grim? I have always wondered that, even as a young kid. I never knew why 'A Rose for Emily' was better than 'The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County'.  The first always made me want to weep, the second made me laugh until tearscame to my eyes. And these days, with all the stresses and strains of the economy and world conflict, surely we need laughter more than ever? I know that the kids do. Too many kids these days walk around with perpetual frowns. Laughter, the full out, 'this is too funny for words' kind, is missing... a chronic absence that leaves the world aching. So I am doing my small part -- every day we try to find something to laugh about. We watch silly shows (including Shakespeare's comedies), we do Mad Libs ( Star Wars Mad Lib, Indiana Jones Mad Libs, Kung Fu Panda Mad Libs), we act out silly plays... and sometimes, when I am feeling artistic, we film the latter.  It is amazing what a difference laughter makes to the day. If we can begin the day with a laugh, everything else just seems to fall into place.

 

I mentioned, in an older post, that we used something I called 'The Humor Curriculum'. I have decided that I will write up a tentative 'schedule' for the coming year. I am still in the process of 'roughing' out scope and sequence as well as learning goals but when I have it done, I will post it here for those who are interested in following it with us. Now the question becomes, in this chronically disorganized mess of home moving, when will I do this? Hmmmm.... something else to plan and organize!