day at camp
Originally uploaded by Liz Henry

Moomin's comic book camp turned out to be pretty good. As foretold, their "outdoor activities" were sitting on the lawn playing checkers and walking to the Stanford bookstore. Maybe I'm projecting my own desires here, but that sounds like more fun than playing sports in 100 degree weather!

The camp was in a giant dorm or frat house on campus, sort of a mansion. The downstairs rooms were set up with folding tables and computers, enlivened greatly by bright green plastic tablecloths on the tables. That made such a difference, they should try it at SuperHappyDevHouse to give it a more festive and less gritty atmosphere. Tablecloths and computers! Ha!

The first day, they talked about comics and drew a storyboard, nothing fancy, just a sketch on a sheet of paper. The counselor asked the kids to think about ordinary stories from daily life, and how they'd draw them in a comic.

Moomin told me later that he thought of Jeffrey Brown's Cat Getting Out of a Bag as his inspiration. Brown draws little black and white strips, mostly about his cat Misty. I think I heard someone call him "The Chris Ware of the Cat Comics World", or I might have made it up. Anyway, I thought Moomin showed good taste in his inspiration! It seems a bit tough to narrate your own life observations when you're only 8. That seems like right on the edge of when people do construct lasting narratives about their experiences.

The kids used Photoshop and several other programs and then Comic Book Creator for their finished comic.

Here's Moomin's:

Me and My Cat

The intentionally funny part is where I say "blah blah blah" in a too-long explanation of how the cat didn't mean anything bad by nipping him during a petting-frenzy.

I love how he put in the blue stripe in his hair, and the accurate color of the blankets on our beds, and the cats' siamese-blue eyes!

This weekend we set up his computer so that he has Comic Life and Skitch to make his own comics, and a little color printer that we had lying around from a year ago and no one was using.

I spent a while floundering around trying to figure out an easy and useful image editor for kids. Most of what is out there is utter crap. TuxPaint and Pencil didn't work out well. And KidPix is ... well what can I say, it's crap, it was being used like 15 years ago and has the feel of a cluttered lurking behemoth, it also feels to me like it cuts off pathways of creativity rather than teaching much of anything. Feel free to contradict me.

And Photoshop, well, good luck. That is too much junk for an 8 year old to mess with.

I use Skitch myself for screen caps and LOLcat-making, and it is very simple and usable. So I taught that to Moomin first. It is on my radar to try Doozla since I like every other software product Plasq makes, this one might be good for kids! Comic Life itself was just perfect. It's amazingly fun to use, including the funny little sound effects that come on when you manipulate images - like a balloon expanding noise when you stretch out or distort text. It's easy to use - and it's elegantly designed.

The past two nights Moomin had episodes of night terror or "pavor nocturnus". He had them a lot when he was younger, from 2 or 3 to around age 5. Basically, it's a sleep disorder like sleepwalking, but instead of walking around in a confused way, the sleeping person feels a very extreme emotion of fear; absolute terror.

With Moomin, it would start with some mild coughing, and gasping or sobbing, starting out slow. Always just around 11pm or midnight, right when we were about to go to sleep ourselves. When we were tired and a bit ill tempered at having to get up.

After a bit of coughing Moomin would sit up in bed. He'd start to howl and scream. His heart would race and pound, he'd break out into a sweat, he'd be shaking and clenching his fists like he was in horrible pain.

It was really scary!

There was no way to snap him out of it or talk him down. He doesn't really wake up, but might answer a couple of questions or babble nonsense. When he was younger it was scarier because it was hard to tell if he was actually super sick or not. It's hard to see him terrified and apparently in pain. He'd also sometimes talk so incoherently, that was scary in itself. Last night he was saying "No!!! NO ELECTRIC!" But night terrors apparently aren't coherent nightmares -- they're not bad dreams you can remember.

We try to comfort him, though it doesn't help. When he was younger and we didn't know what was happening I know sometimes we tried to snap him out of it. We'd be begging him to tell us what was wrong, what hurt, what was happening, if he was okay. I wish we had known about night terror as a sleep disorder, but I didn't realize it till he was around 4 or 5.

It may have worked sometimes to get him to either drink something, or go to the bathroom, like it helped to snap him back into reality. Mostly though, we have to hold him and comfort him for about 20 minutes. He'd become truly conscious for about 5 seconds and then fall deeply asleep, no longer fitful and sweating.

That's a long time!

Sometimes he'd get up and walk, or struggle to get out of our attempts to be comforting.

After he falls into normal sleep, he doesn't remember what happened. If he woke up for a minute or two in the bathroom or living room he'd be confused and disoriented.

We had to warn people who were babysitting him. Just wait it out, hold him or reassure him he's asleep (though that doesn't help, it feels horrible to do nothing.)

For the last few years, his night terror episodes have been rare. A few times a year, maybe.

These episodes became somewhat less scary for me after Moomin had his appendix burst! Now *that* was scary! On the other hand, now when he has these midnight episodes, I am spared the worry that he might be dying of appendicitis. His appendix is gone already. Whew.

Anyway, if you're a relatively new parent and your toddler or young child wakes up and screams in terror, don't read "nightmares" into it or necessarily think they are having a severe health crisis. Also don't assume they're misbehaving or in hysterics. It might be night terrors -- and isn't their fault, or your fault.

It is scary and... I have to say... exasperating.

I wonder if tiny babies have this happen too, but people assume it's colic or general infant fussiness? Surely it's been studied.

Here's a good description of http://kidshealth.org/parent/medical/sleep/terrors.html

>pavor nocturnus from kidshealth.org:

Night terrors typically occur about 2 or 3 hours after a child falls asleep, when sleep transitions from the deepest stage of non-REM sleep to lighter REM sleep, a stage where dreams occur. Usually this transition is a smooth one. But rarely, a child becomes agitated and frightened — and that fear reaction is a night terror.

During a night terror, a child might suddenly sit upright in bed and shout out or scream in distress. The child's breathing and heartbeat might be faster, he or she might sweat, thrash around, and act upset and scared. After a few minutes, or sometimes longer, a child simply calms down and returns to sleep.

That's exactly what we experience with Moomin. How comforting it was to find out that nothing serious was wrong, even if it does seem horrible for him to go through.

In the morning he never remembers that it happened.

M. at camp
Originally uploaded by Liz Henry

Moomin: This camp is GREAT! This is the best camp ever! They had Honey Nut Cheerios!!
Me: Hahahaha! Awesome! Hahahaahah!
Moomin: AND they had raisins.
Me: No way. Hahahaha. Raisins!
Moomin: Yes! At the first snack time before the aftercare they also had Cheezits!
Me: *DIES LAUGHING*
Moomin: Oh! I get it.
Me: Heehehehehehe
Moomin: You're laughing because I sort of should be talking about the Marine Science part of the camp. And not the snacks.
Me: You are correct, my son. I do love good snacks. On the other hand did not pay freaking four hundred bucks for you to attend Snack Camp.
Moomin: Well, let me tell you about the sort of British things. They're very tiny and live in salt ponds. I think, sort of British, but not really...
Me: Brine shrimp?
Moomin: YES! Sea monkeys! I learned about the ecology of estuaries! There's this very, very bad thing, called acid rain. I petted a shark. And, we made a model of pollution, and then we smashed it!
Me: Oh well okay then, definitely $400 well spent.

Between the old school AD&D Monster Manual with amateurish cartoon drawings and the latest one with glistening 3-D-looking fangs in living color, Moomin chose the older book. I thought about why and realized that the design in D&D looks too grown up.

Compare the covers. Here's the 1977 version:



It's cartoony, childish, stylized, and shows a range of nifty magical creatures, some scarier and some, like the unicorn, benign or friendly.

Here's the new one:



It's... a door with an eyeball in it?

Inside the images are sort of glitzy and porntastic and make you think more of something in a horror movie than a game. They're scary!

It seems worth pointing out. The audience for the original game grew up, the game's being marketed to them or to 20 year olds, and the elementary school kids are left out of consideration of the books' art and systems.

This while the miniatures and the idea of the game itself remain excellent for kids!

My mom just gave Moomin an earful of stories from her childhood. I tried to get my great-grandma to tell me about her childhood once. "Come on, Nana, what was it like, what was different? What was it like being a little girl in 190-whatever?" She couldn't think of anything to say but finally said that she missed the fun of chasing the iceman's horse-drawn wagon and begging for chips of ice. Since she got so embarrassed and her story made it sound like her childhood utterly sucked, I never asked again!

Not so with my mom. She regaled Moomin with stories of how her sisters and she would brutally gang up on each other for elbow and kick fights. Usually she wasn't the one ganged up on, because she was the middle sister. She always tried to be the goody goody.

Life was incredibly unfair. She had eczema, so she couldn't wash the dishes. Instead, one sister would wash the dishes one night. (Mime a sister daintily doing the dishes, nose stuck in the air, lording it over Tiny Grandma-to-Be and then flouncing off.) And the other sister would do the dishes on the other night. But *every night* my mom had to set the table, clear the table, dry the dishes and put them away, take out the trash, burn the trash! "Now I ask you, is that fair? Why didn't they just buy me some fucking rubber gloves and let me take my turn washing the dishes!" (By this time Moomin is on the floor laughing, rolling around and holding his stomach.) Never mind the part about having to leave off watching Perry Mason 5 minutes early to set the table. How is THAT fair. Why didn't they just have dinner 10 minutes later?

Every time she said "We were BRATS!" it was the funniest thing in the universe.

We ended up with some 50 year old resentment from the middle sister that she had to wear her (taller) younger sister's hand me downs and constantly endure people's surprise that she was the older one because she was so short. Then, a grim tale.

"And one day we were waiting for the bus after school and I got SO FED UP. I pushed her off the steps, and a teacher saw me. She said "K---!!!! You go right inside and tell your teacher what you did!" (Look of disbelief and deep consideration-of-not-doing-it.)

Moomin was hanging on every word... he completely understood...

"And I thought, what the hell! I'm going to feel like an asshole! So I went in (miming it) and told her (high little voice) "Teacher I pushed my sister down the steps." And my teacher said "Did she get hurt?" and I said "No!" and she said "Why did you do it?" and I was like "Because she's a little bitch! She's a 5 year old bitch!"

Moomin was in physical pain from laughing so hard at his hilarious grandma. I followed him to his room where he kept trying to unfurl himself from laughing-too-hard-position. "OH MY GOD I can't believe she SAID that" he screeched. "Please help me stop laughing!"

"Do you really think she said that when she was so little?"

"No!!! Why I can't I stop laughing?"

I think of the bit in Louise Fitzhugh's book "The Long Secret" where the grandmother tells Beth Ellen, "Shy people are angry people." Certainly true for both my mom and Moomin. I think her stories are awesome, because little kids like Moomin don't really hear enough about the actual feelings of people and instead a bit too much about what we want them to feel or think they should feel.

I'm not sure what he will conclude about the olden days. Maybe that little kids in crinolines swore a lot and went around brutally elbowing each other over rolls of Lifesavers.

Yesterday Moomin tried to explain the joke from Knights of the Dinner Table, a comic book about a group of people in a role-playing game, to my mom. "And then he says, 'I waste him with my crossbow...' and that's funny, because..." is the only bit I overheard.



I didn't even know that Moomin had been reading KODT! I'm so pleased! He has not played a lot of role-playing games himself yet, but he's been around ours ever since he was born. He must think it is totally normal for a bunch of grown-ups to sit around in the living room saying things like "I go for him with an axe while you cast your sleep spell" and rolling dice. That's got to be weird. In one of his favorite games, we borrowed his dragons and godzilla monsters as our "miniatures" to play out an enormous battle from a Korea-in-1864 "His Majesty's Dragon" game.

I'm not sure if anyone reading this will get the joke about the crossbow but it has to do with a character from the comic book who is sort of a dork. His role-playing character doesn't have a lot of depth or character, and when his party encounters anything at all, he tends to respond by trying to kill it. So actually it's something nerdy that I say in random situations. If I'm in a business meeting or running into a hard technical problem I might totally mutter "I waste it with my crossbow" meaning that the idiotic beavis-and-butthead part of me has an ignoble impulse to just stand back and shoot whatever it is, treating it as a hack and slash approach to a Wandering Monster rolled up from the Random Encounter Table, instead of properly dealing like a grownup with a complex situation. I'm not sure if Moomin even gets the whole joke, but maybe. I consider how much I liked to sing "National Brotherhood Week" when I was 5, and figure he will find it funny for his own reasons, and fill in the gaps later.

First of all I had a blast at BlogHer this year!

Now here's the rant. I kept hearing people say they were "just a mommyblogger" or "not just a mommyblogger". Come on, people! To the women who say they're "not like those mommybloggers", think what you're saying. Why do you have to distance yourself so carefully from that? Do you think it devalues what a person has to say, because they have a child and write from that as part of their identity?

This Military Mama and her baby


Mommybloggers are diverse. Moms write about politics, activism, technology, business, health, and everything you can think of, along with their work as parents.

It's like saying "just a worker". "Just a steelworker." Would you dismiss a whole class of men that way, because they were talking or writing?

It's a job. We write about it.

One of my favorite moments at the conference came during the session on national security, blogging, and the war, "Talking about War and Peace: How Women Are Changing the Security Debate" moderated by Lorelei Kelly. During the course of the session, everyone in the room described their interest in the topic, ranging from professional interest, having family in the military or having a military background, being political journalists, or anti-war activists. A young mom sat against the wall in the back of the room during the entire discussion, soothing and breastfeeding her tiny baby, listening with great interest. When it was her turn to speak, she said, "My husband's on a submarine right now. I'm a Navy Wife. And the other navy wives I'm around all day on the base don't understand why I'd be critical of this war even for a second, or have any doubts." That's why she blogs. It gives me chills to think of it.

And my mom told me after the conference that she usually doesn't notice people much, but that now, post-BlogHer, she never could look at another woman she passes on the street without thinking, she has her own individual experience and perception, and is a uniquely interesting person.

Those two statements combine for me into one thought. As women we have rarely had moments of public interaction without being mediated and filtered by editors. Part of the power of our storytelling and unmediated position of having access to the means of cultural production, now, is that our voices are heard -- for example, Military Mama's descriptions of her own life -- and we also see each other as people with voices -- as my mom described her epiphany of others' subjective position.

Moomin loved farm camp! They skimmed cream off the milk, churned butter from it, got eggs from the henhouse, fed some goats, and saw lots of other animals.

He has a choice at pool time of being a Cat, who doesn't go in the pool; a Heron, who goes in but has to stay behind the 3 foot line, and a Dolphin, who can go anywhere. Today he was a Cat but he says tomorrow (if he can prove he will put his face in the water without panicking) he might become a Heron!

He made friends with a couple of the kids, and talked with them about Magic Treehouse books and about an obscure movie he described to me (Mister Something's Magical Workshop?) and about loving animals.

He really really liked it!

I wish I could go see the camp, but it is down a gravelly hill path and up another hill, too scary for crutches and not possible in a wheelchair without a very strong person pushing (and a bit scary even then, or impossible, on the downhill bits). Maybe I can ride one of the larger goats.

So, I had emailed to ask about the access situation, but got no answer as my question was last minute, and then at drop-off time I asked if I could have a cell phone or a number to call so that I could call when I got there at 4:30 or 5 to pick Moomin up and alternatively, could they make an exception for him for sign-out and have another parent (sent by me) bring him to the parking lot. They said they would call me that morning to let me know. No one called and I did not bother to follow up, trusting to luck. I got to the camp at 4:50 figuring that I'd hang around in the parking lot till I could catch someone and ask them to bring Moomin back up the path. This sort of thing usually works just fine. INSTEAD, oh instead, they had some counselor wait with Moomin in the (hot, dusty, boring) parking lot from 4pm till I came! And she did not speak quite fluent enough English to explain or understand me, or to explain to him, so he was upset because he thought I was an hour late. So picture me putting on my patient face while I go back and forth with this lady about it. "No, it's okay, he can stay here until 5. It's okay." "No, it's not okay." "Yes, is okay." "It might be okay with you, but it's not okay with me. Basically you're making my kid sit in the parking lot bored out of his mind for an hour because I'm disabled? Not okay!" "No, you do not understand, you cannot walk up the hill." "I KNOW I CAN'T WALK UP THE HILL."

I'm glad I kept my temper in front of Moomin!

I gave up explaining and thanked her, left, and called the camp director, who agreed Moomin should stay at the camp from 4 till 5 with all the other kids, the books and toys, in the after care that we paid for! I did not pay for "Parking Lot Boredom Camp!" (I was super polite to the director and she was super polite and nice in return!)

Just a note that I don't expect Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory to be nicely paved with a 3% grade special for my wheelchair! I just want people to LISTEN to what I ask for, and maybe THINK once in a while... and then when I explain what is wrong, LISTEN again...

*Rant Over*

I had a good day, some difficulty tolerating pain, but it was my second time crutching not wheeling into my office from my work parking lot and I did manage to make it through the day! Then drove half an hour and back again! Go, me!

Moomin told me all about how he loved the camp in the car and sang me songs from last week's camp, including one about milking a cow and going bananas.

When we got home:

Me: Hey, so do you want a popsicle?

Moomin: YES!!!!! (does a sort of air guitar jump of victory)

Me: Hahahaha! Red or purple?

Moomin: You're the BEST MOM EVER!!!!!

Me: Flattery will get you everywhere. Keep it coming baby!

Moomin: I didn't mean just for the popsicle. You're also a great mom about other things. But, mostly right now, the popsicle.

I'm reading a school handbook for new Kindergarten students and came across a page on the "I Message". That, I know what it is. It's when you go "I FEEL... BLAH... WHEN YOU... BLAH." That prevents you from blaming the other person and makes you take responsibility for your own feelings. For example, "I feel like you're being a jerk when you're acting so jerky."

Just kidding!

So, I'd never heard of the Clean-Up statement before, but it looks very useful and good.

The Clean-Up
1) I KNOW that I ...
2) I APOLOGIZE.
3) What can I do to MAKE IT RIGHT?
4) I will DO MY BEST to...
5) (Optional) Will you FORGIVE me?

I know quite a few grownups who could stand to learn that basic formula! It's something I've learned from listening to meetings and thinking about group dynamics, and from feminist and anti-racist activist stuff.

I should remember it more often myself, and make less explanations & excuses.

I think it's great that schools are teaching this kind of skill and such a range of emotional vocabulary.

Everything for Europe and at least 3 conferences has to fit inside two backpacks, one big and one small daypack! Help me out with some advice!

I was inspired by the Own 100 Things idea and various "packing light" sites including onebag.com.

I'll be in three cities: London, Brussels, and Budapest. And, am moving around a couple of times within London. And I will be working full time, and keep in mind I'm mostly going to be getting around in a wheelchair and with taxis, so the less junk I have to carry, the better!

Here's my packing list:

To wear on plane: jeans, tank top, guayabera, long sleeve flannel shirt


Clothes - in big backpack
==========================
- 1 pair of jeans
- 1 pair black pants
- pajama pants
- 4 tank tops
- 3 tshirts
- 1 other guayabera to wear over tank tops
- 1 nice suit jacket
- 1 fancy sleeveless shirt for suit
- 7 pairs of underwear
- 5 pairs of socks
- bathing suit (really, wind shorts; wear with tank top for bathing suit effect)
- cute skinny tie, bandana
- belt

Gadgets (mostly in small backpack)
==================================
- phone + charger
- camera + charger + mini-usb cord
- flip video
- eeepc laptop + cord
- folding cane with velcro strap
- Moleskine notebook
- pens
- at least 2 books
- crossword puzzle book
- small headphones

Bathroom stuff (attempting to be super minimal)

- prescrips
- hair wax junk, face scrub, antiperspirant
- nose irrigating squeeze thing
- eyedrops, lotion, qtips, earplugs, tampons
- kleenex (need lots on plane)

It looks like this, unpacked:



and here it is all bundled up in those "cube" compartment things, which I bought at the camping store in hopes it would turn me into one of those neat, organized people:



Here are my dilemmas. Help me out!

- skirt? (medium, black, utilitarian, house-dress-ish)
- miniskirt? (long-ish but above knee, black, pleated, cute)
- fancy black pants for suit? almost too tight, but still good
- big comfy tshirt for sleeping in?
- MacBook (ie big heavy computer, i would work faster from it)
- Fluevog boots, so cute, vanity, rather heavy
- hot pink psychedelic spats
- I will miss my big folding crutches
- I consider cutting one of my foam pillows in half and squashing it up
--- because I am so fussy about pillows and my neck hurts at night

I don't wear skirts much, especially since they are hard to manage in a wheelchair or on crutches. I could go without the big heavy boots. If I wanted a skirt, or even crutches, I could buy them in London.

Note that guayaberas really are the perfect thing. They are good over a tank top so you don't have to wear a bra or sweaty tshirt but are still somewhat modest about your armpit hair and bralessness. They have lots of pockets! And they look cute!

But about those big heavy stompy cute swirly comfy Fluevog boots... Here's where I need your advice.

What should I leave out? What have I forgotten?

Here's a silly meme quiz! I have gotten drunk on 6th Street, and I have ridden a horse. I know when the Battle of San Jacinto happened! And where they make Bluebell Ice Cream!

You are 77% REAL Texan!!

You're way more Texan than average. You're parents were probably from here too. We're glad to have you. You probably go to the border for Christmas shopping and are well versed in BBQ, Mexican Food and .. well thats pretty much it.

How Texan Are You?

So, are you Texan or not?

Here's the video of the 3rd grade dance act in the school talent show! An eighth grade girl choreographed it and coached all the 3rd graders through many practices. They dance to the James Bond theme, Soulja Boy, and then What Is the Sun? by They Might Be Giants.



I giggled a lot during it because it was SO AWESOME. Especially at the bits where the kids are all sneaking around like they're James Bond spies with finger guns.

The whole show was impressive. A crew of middle school kids organized everything and ran the show, including practices, planning, stage crew, sound and lighting, getting the auditorium, and selling tickets. I enjoyed the piano solos, the many middle school girls doing solo dance routines, the group dances, the heartfelt songs sometimes sung a bit softly & deer-in-the-headlights. My mom friend who shall remain mercifully nameless kept texting me naughtily during the show and together we invented the camera-flask, perfect for all PTA type of school events so you could video your child's song AND discreetly take a nip of soul-restoring tequila. It went sort of like this, (heavily fictionalized)

6:35 omg need drink
6:36 where iz flask
6:37 flask camera!
6:38 aaaaaagh
6:45 not my fault i do not allow hannah montana in teh house
6:46 bwahaha sucka
6:47 KILL ME
6:48 hahaha killing would be too slow
6:50 you have to admit they are sweet
6:50 no i dont
6:51 cynicism melting halp snif

Meanwhile the little kid next to me was all like "I know breakdancing. Why do you have a wheelchair? Can you do tricks? I think breakdancing is really cool. I know that girl! I know that girl too! I know her brother! Oh I can't believe they're going to do this, why, why why!" (said for anything mushy & sentimental) I think for him the show needed more explosions.

I remembered how I used to watch my friends make up dances and create mildly too-sexy outfits for our middle school talent shows. I could not fathom how to keep up with their dance moves and would not even try. They danced one year to "Jukebox Hero" and the next to "Controversy" which I couldn't believe they got away with.

The other things I gleaned from the talent show experience were fashion-related. I really really really wanted the one guitar duet kid's outfit with its vest, buttons, baggy pants, and ska-ish tie. Oh wait I have that outfit already, it's just that I'm not 13 or 6 feet tall, and can't play the guitar or stand in that sort of guitar player attitude. Oh well! (Their guitar solos were smoking!!!) The other fashion insight was that the 80s have come again in mutated form in a somewhat hideous way. Of course they were all cute as bugs and YET... the mutant halter-top-vest thing, over the long tank top, please god make it stop! But, finally now I understand all the teenage girls' outfits as described in super bad Harry Potter fanfiction. So, I felt old and detached from things that girls wear in junior high, which is probably a good sign of almost-maturity, or that other thing where I am stuck in my decade, the way certain women in the 70s and 80s were stuck in 1945.

Oh also? Kids are awesome and I get all teary eyed and sentimental at the thought of how much nerve it takes them to get up on stage and sing a rock song or play the flute or dance around with everyone watching. I thought they all were amazingly cool. As a bonus, some of them had massive amounts of performing talent, the ability to connect to the audience and belt out a song -- like this girl singing a country and western song with perfect self possession, or these girls dancing:



But the performances were good no matter what the level of ability was. I thought about karaoke bars and Rock Band and how we are more willing these days, maybe, than at some points in recent history, to stand up and perform for the fun of it and as a social activity rather than as perfect experts.

*UPDATE* And now I'm listening to the Langley School Project album. Trust me... go listen to it... at least to Space Oddity and Desperado.

This is both a product review from a free sample, and a contest entry for BlogHer.


First off I have to tell you about the total disaster of my caulking project...

READ MORE about my caulk review on Badgermama Reviews!

Moomin's school choir sings Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody". Ambitious of them!



If I didn't totally love his choir director already, this would have done it. I'm taking suggestions for what they should put on their repertoire for next year. "Nevermind" would be just perfect.

The kids have worked incredibly hard this year. Every Monday and Friday, they got up and went to school an hour early for choir practice. I'm so impressed even with the difference since Christmas, in their timing and harmony.

Oh and... a sneak preview of next Monday's talent show. I caught the 3rd grade at their dance practice, with an older kid as their choreographer and coach. They're doing a dance to Soulja Boy.

Here's the instructional video if you want to learn the dance. I can't wait for this show!

We had a great time at WisCon last weekend. There was a costume party night with the theme of academia; so, any outfit that was from a science fiction or fantasy school. Moomin dressed as a squire from Tamora Pierce's "Protector of the Small" series, set in the fantasy world of Tortall. The hero is a girl named Kel, who has a knack for befriending animals, mostly because she is kind to them. She has a loyal, smart, and strong horse who's grumpy and often bites, a dog she rescued, and a huge flock of sparrows.

Moomin's outfit was his knight outfit but with small artificial birds wired all over it. He was dressed as a friend of Kel's who goes to the same school and who also has sparrows.



There were duct tape wristbands, also with birds.

Oh, and I got the birds online, 12 bucks for a dozen, from a floral trim shop.

I also made him a duct tape sword belt, with a belt pouch for his hotel key card, at the last minute. For his crest, I drew a shield with a sea serpent, because he loves ocean animals and dragons and thinks sea serpents are the coolest.

So, it was just one of the coolest things about the con for him, that he got to meet the author of the Tortall books:



How cool is that! He got to meet one of his favorite authors, while dressed as one of her characters!

Now if he could just grow up to collaborate on a book with Dav Pilkey!

Meanwhile, at the con and afterwards, all our photos including these were made fun of, reposted, photoshopped, etc. by some people. That more or less already happened; I am pretty pissed off about it, but, nothing I can particularly do about the permanent trail of rude comments about my child. I said my say about it elsewhere, and now am carrying on as usual.

Here we are in our own context, anyway, having a fantastic time!

I always feel a bit odd at WisCon in that I am not one of the parents who spend a lot of time with the kids. I do a fair amount of playing with kids otherwise, including at ConQuest, but when I'm at the WisCon I want to see all the adults who I otherwise don't get to see. So, Moomin mostly hung out in the Kid's Room -- they have childcare for the tiny kids, a kid's room with legos and activities and trips for ice cream and swimming for older kids, and a teenagers' room with a ton of video games. It's a very nice set up and I appreciate the people who volunteer for it. I do other work for the con, but still, a bit of guilt that I don't behave in a proper cooperative manner and chip in to help with kids!

Each year also, I want to go to parties and late night panels, so we've gotten a babysitter for evenings to hang with Moomin as he's asleep in our room. This year, friends of our regular WisCon babysitter helped us out, two sisters who go to U. of Wisconsin. They were fantastic - took him out for pizza and ice cream on evenings we didn't all have dinner together, played with him outside in the park around the Capitol, read with him, and were just generally awesome. If you need a babysitter this summer in Madison, Wisconsin, talk to me and I'll give you their info.

On Sunday night at the con, we watched the Mars Phoenix landing coverage as news of the lander came in. We watched several channels including the usstream video in NASA itself, and the fantastic realtime information from dmuller's site, which added exciting data & countdown information and told us what was going to happen next. More about Mars in my next post, I promise!

sea turtle shirt
Originally uploaded by Liz Henry

Well, Moomin raised $565.10 for St. Jude Hospital with his Mathathon! I'm so proud! Thank you to everyone who pledged and donated.

Tonight he had to write a "silly story" with his spelling words and he was somewhat flummoxed. "I make up stories with superheroes all the time, but they're more serious. But somehow, when someone's telling me to make up a story, I can't think of anything!"

Much less when you're told to include the words:
- flies
- donkey
- monkey
- early
- noisy
- messy
- berries
- chilly
- happier

I suggested putting Godzilla into the story but he looked at me like I was bonkers. "The rules don't SAY you can't put in other things. It doesn't have to be just about the boring old things in the spelling words." Moomin would have none of this.

9:15 and he's still not in bed. He was so devoted to the story!

His teacher told him that she liked the idea of the pencils with his name on them. He used to lose at least 5 or 6 pencils a day. Now, he still loses them, but because they've got his name stamped on in gold letters, some of them find their way back!

Lately, he has enjoyed reading "The Twenty-One Balloons" and "Dragonology". He's in the middle of Marguerite Henry's "King of the Wind".

I came back from Seattle with strep throat. Actually, I left here with strep throat, but I didn't realize till Sunday that it must be strep since it had been days and days and hurt more than I could have imagined throats are capable of feeling! So, I haven't read to Moomin for over a week, and we are *right* at the exciting end of Farmer Boy.

I know that when it gets to the point where the mean, stingy rich man gives Almanzo a nickel for returning the wallet full of money, Moomin will be unbearably excited at the injustice of it all. And the end! I get little shivers when I think of the line, "If it's a colt you want, I'll give you Starlight" and how Almanzo nearly faints with joy. Well, I can't wait for Moomin's smile of happiness at that ending.

Liz Reading at Queer Open Mic
Originally uploaded by Liz.

I am road tripping up to Seattle this week! If you are there please come see me at this event ! I would love to see you all and would love the support. April 25, 8pm, Annex Theatre, 1100 East Pike Street.

You will hear me say the word "Lezzie" in a Texas accent. Also, I promise to wear leather pants. There will be bubbling, and silliness, and insane talk of poems and roadside geology and the roots of the Klamath Mountains. I will pop a wheelie for you and you may pat me on the head and tell me I am brave (JUST KIDDING about the patting).

I will not have my child with me, but you can bring yours, as long as you keep them out of the bar area and don't mind them hearing some intense stories of playground bullies and maybe some cussing, plus you realize my story is about being queer, queer, queer. All the stories are AMAZING and are written about elementary school and early middle school experiences & with that audience in mind!

Get info & buy tickets here: Can I Sit W/You reading

Tickets are priced at $5 and $12, which means you can choose how much to donate. Money all goes to my hometown Special Ed PTA.

It continues to amaze me how people are reacting.

- The arguments that if a woman did this project just once, or if she had been pregnant by accident, and then aborted/miscarried and documented it, then it would be okay. But, repeating it, is not okay.

- The arguments based on the person reacting's own desire to have a baby, or that they had a miscarriage themselves and find it shocking, horrifying, disgusting, inconceivable (pun!) that a woman would get pregnant on purpose, then abort.

- The way almost no one doubted the story (though the "herbal" thing is so thin.)

- People who are in theory, pro-choice, but who still found this inconceivable, to the point of violent anger, and wishing death, illness, or permanent infertility upon the artist, also maligning her sexuality, calling her slutty, questioning her class background, calling her elite, an idiot, even calling her *name* "pretentious".

- People's lack of awareness of cultural relativity in general. Might it occur to some U.S. & other women who use birth control at all, that their own decision to limit their fertility in that way, might look shocking, inconceivable, appalling, disgusting, to women from other cultures, and in the U.S., from strongly fundamentalist religious backgrounds? Might some woman who is actually oppressed because of her inability to conceive, be offended to the point of anger and disgust, by your condoms or your tubal ligation?

The entire project and the responses show, that though we have a strong current of "pro choice" politics in the U.S., it does not go so far as to actually attribute choice to women about what to do with their bodies.

* We can choose to work in stressful, toxic jobs.
* We can choose to get cosmetic surgery.
* We can choose to drive our bodies into the ground and risk our health by being professional or amateur athletes (ruined knees, anyone?)
* We can choose to risk our bodies in extreme sports.
* We can choose to do risky work, work with people with contagious diseases, and so on.
* We can choose to smoke, or be alcoholics.
* We can choose the risk of carrying a pregnancy to term.
* We can choose to get an abortion, if the fetus has spina bifida or Downs or for any arbitrary reason.
* We can choose to get pregnant over and over, even if our chance of miscarrying is very high, as long as we "want a baby".
* We can choose to get pregnant, and then change our minds and abort.
* We can choose to get pregnant and then give up the baby.
* We can choose to get pregnant in order to harvest the baby's bone marrow if it is a match for our other child who is ill.

All those things are our "choice" freely. Supposedly. If that is freedom.

And, we can choose to get an abortion, only if our intent is pure by some nebulous standard. Only if we say that we didn't mean it, that we weren't sluts, that we weren't careless.

Only if we don't do it for art.

Oh, wait, we could probably get an abortion if we were strippers or supermodels and needed to get one in order to keep making a living. Those things are art... right?

But to get one to make an artistic and political statement -- Somehow, that is creating a visceral disgust in many people.

If I have actual agency and choice and control over our bodies, then, my body is my canvas. What I do with it is up to me.

How I talk about it, and document and video and photograph it, is also up to me.

Next time your friend confides in you that she had an abortion, will you ask her why? Will you make sure that her motives are pure, that she was careful in some way not to get pregnant in the first place, before you feel something of the disgust with her that people have been expressing for Shvarts?


And your disgust, your blogging, your explanations of your own life, your conviction that it is wrong and must be stopped, your frenzy of hate and outrage, where will it be when you next see one of those white panel vans with the giant anti-abortion billboards with bloody fetuses on it, parked in your town? The huge number of pro-life web sites, videos, and so on, on the web? What will you do? What action will you take to express your feelings? Is what they do a cry for attention, a feeble, laughable attempt to make a political statement? If not, then why is what Shvarts described mocked, reviled, belittled? Are those pro-life people insensitive, elitist, outrageous, unacceptable with their grief-triggering images? If that's what you think, pro-choice or anti, then, what are you saying about that use of imagery by anti-choice activists?

I challenge people to think a little more about it all, and give their reactions more analysis and time. And, about the project, I certainly realize it is upsetting, perturbing, "triggering" for many people. I respect that, but it is not good justification to lash out with hostility at another woman's choices. As with blogs and fanfic, art gets to push boundaries, and can carry "trigger" or warning labels to let people know.

I really like Aliza Shvartz's art project. She has done some videos of herself bleeding into the bathtub and I think some paintings with her blood, described thusly:

a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself 'as often as possible' while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages.

Now, that description could encompass having an IUD, or possibly being on low-dose birth control pills, and having heterosexual penis-in-vagina intercourse with no condom, and doing some art with your menstrual blood.

I'm just here to tell you it is the same thing.

It is what she is calling it -- "miscarriages" -- and her stated intent.

An IUD does not prevent sperm from fertilizing your egg. Birth control pills don't always stop you from ovulating -- they also change your endometrial lining so that fertilized eggs can't implant. For example, Norplant, and the mini-pill do not necessarily prevent ovulation or conception.

Morning-after pills like Plan B and others with progestin + estrogen also prevent implantation.

I am very interested in this performance piece and in the reaction of hatred and horror it is bound to provoke. I think that will be very interesting to expose people's attitudes towards abortion and contraception.

Contraception, morning after pills, and abortion, are legal in this country. So is IVF and so are drugs like Clomid. Both IVF and "fertility drugs" have a high rate of miscarriage. But because the intent is to have a baby, and not to create art and make a statement, there is not a huge reaction of shock and horror (except from people who are against abortion in general, I think.) I will bet you that a lot of people who think IUDs, minipills, morning after pills, IVF, and fertility drugs are okay, will react in extreme ways to Shvarts's artistic statement. So, I am pointing out that would be an inconsistent position.

I had an IUD for over a year and I had sex while it was in. How many "miscarriages" did I have? Was I an evil babykiller who deserves to die and have like 100 commenters in Jezebel wish lifelong infertility upon me? Look at the comments on the Jezebel piece, and the hatred there. Look how quickly people leap to judge. If I documented every one of my period when I had that IUD in, and called it art about miscarriage and abortion, what would you think?




You may not agree with me or how I feel about the project, but I hope I have made you think twice about your initial reactions.

I suggest that instead we direct our horror and hatred and disgust towards people like Princeton professor Peter Singer, who believes in euthanasia for elderly and disabled people and that it is ethical to kill disabled infants because their parents might be unhappy at the burden of caring for them. Though I don't know the details of Shvarts's piece and haven't seen it, I am impressed already. Yes, miscarriage can be hard and terrible, and abortion can be a tough decision. But, we have abortions. We should not be ashamed of them, and we should be able to look at what we do, right in the face, or in this case, look at the blood and look at the decision making process.

Thank you Alisa for this thoughtful and intense documentation project.

It is a little silly but I am wildly excited and proud that Moomin is a finalist in his age group in the city-wide poetry contest!

For the past few years I have helped judge that contest, because it's incredibly fun and it seems like my civic duty as a poet to be poety for my community. Hundreds of kids enter it from all the schools in the district. The librarians look them over and eliminate all but 15 or 20 for each age group. Then a small panel of judges spends a few hours arguing about who should win!

This year, I had bronchitis on Poetry Judging Day and so did not make it down to the library. And... Moomin is one of the winners!

I have a whole somewhat silly fantasy of how, if I had been there, I would have seen his poem in the batch for 3rd-5th grade, and my gentle smile of false humility as I cleared my throat to recuse myself as a judge for that group. And how I would have been bursting with pride, poorly concealed.

Allow me to poorly conceal it even more here on my blog. It is the first poem he ever wrote, and I am very proud!

My Canary's Talking


My canary's talking,
it's copying me,
I think it's done it
since March 23.

It clomps like my shoes
and has my own voice.
It chatters when I'm cold,
and sighs on choice.

I don't understand it
my mind is all blank
I'm going crazy,
it sometimes goes clank!

It crunches when I bite a carrot.
Hey, it's squawking now!
Oh now I understand,
it's actually a parrot!

The meter is not too bad, though not perfect, and the rhyme is good! It's funny, too. He clearly gets the idea of the genre of humorous poetry with a twist at the end. His penchant for knock-knock jokes and bad puns is developing in yet another direction. As a keen-minded, harsh judge even of third graders, I do note the slight awkwardness of the phrase "on choice", chosen in a desperate attempt to make the rhyme come out while not quite making sense. However, that is ... of course... the note of authenticity that proves to us the poem was not copied out of a book and so as far as I'm concerned it is the flaw in the diamond that makes the diamond priceless.

Moomin and I have had interesting talks all week. He has a project from school to look around at many household objects and find out where they were made. Malaysia, Sri Lanka, China, China, China, England, Taiwan, China, Japan, Italy... and China. We looked at food, and talked about how things were for Almanzo in Farmer Boy and for Abraham Lincoln. Almanzo ate melon when it was ripe, in the summer - and he grew it himself from seeds. We can have it all the time because it is always in season somewhere, and because we have fast, huge cargo ships.

He kept asking me questions, and at one point I was explaining why a lot of things used to be made in this country, but now aren't. You might laugh... but I said that working conditions were bad in the factories, talked about child labor laws, toxic chemicals, injuries, low pay. And that people joined together in unions to try and fight for laws to make better conditions in the factories. But over many years, the greedy factory owners (I did not go so far as to describe multinational corporations) realized they could put their factories in other countries where the laws did not protect people so well and so it is easier to exploit the workers.

"So.. they are like supervillains."

"Well, yes, we don't really have real supervillains, but if you looked around for some to fight, they would qualify."

I went on to say that people in some of these other countries really want jobs and the factories get built and they work in the factories and get paid... But that the conditions aren't very good... and we still get to buy things for very cheap prices... and the people don't get paid enough.

"So, I bet in China, they didn't have Cesar Chávez!"

*I beam with pride at his making this connection*

"Well, not quite... hahaha... no... um... it is so complicated to explain that I think it would take me a YEAR."

César Chávez gets talked about here because we drive down the street named after him and he is in all the murals!

We kept on a while about farms and factories and the way that everyone buys stuff from everywhere else, and when you are all buying and selling and trading stuff it is called economics.

This was a good school assignment. It has him curiously looking at packaging and at labels of clothing and all sorts of things that he never thought about before!

I can tell I am going to have to do a lesson on history of China in the 20th century. Wish me luck. I wonder what they're teaching elementary school kids about World War II, these days?

Also I realize he and I have not talked about the war we're in, lately. It comes up every once in a while. But we need to get in there with maps. Maybe my "global economics" lesson will extend a little further.

Through his school, Moomin is participating in the St. Jude's Hospital Mathathon. He will have a workbook of math problems, and will have 1 week to do up to 250 problems. I pledged him 50 cents per problem!



If you'd like to pledge, please send me an email and let us know how much you'll donate per completed math problem. I think we would also need your full name. The sponsor form asks for 5 cents per problem as a mininum. You would have to then snail mail us a check for the amount in mid-April, with the check made out to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Moomin says:

You should pledge for my Mathathon because the school wants to raise money for the hospital for kids who have cancer. I pretty much really like to do all kinds of math problems, and I'm pretty much hoping that there will actually be some challenging ones. Like some challenging multiplication. I'd like that!

beach day
Originally uploaded by Liz.

Moomin and I took the long way back from SF to home. We ate bagels at the cafe in Montara, talking about whales. He brought my bagel and his and my latte to the table and was complimented by the cafe people for helping out. It is nice to see him brace up, his proud smile, the way he says quietly, "I know. Thanks!" He told me a joke that he made up and we talked about storytelling and stand up comedy. Here is the joke:

- What has 6 legs, works very hard, and goes "Ho ho ho?"
- Anta Claus!

Moss Landing was perfectly at a very low tide, but it was windy as hell. We had all kinds of extra jackets and fleeces and hats from my trunk, but the strong north wind was unbearable even in the sun, even huddled in my picnic blanket. So after a bit of tidepooling, admiring seals, and him gathering rocks-with-holes-bored-through while I lounged, we left.

On the way back we resolved to stop at every interesting place that even MIGHT be interesting. The pony farm was rejected as too boring and babyish, even though ponies are cool. I could not really walk around and around the ring holding a pony's halter, anyway, so that was a relief. The fruit stand and farm thrilled him strangely. He bought a peach and strawberries. The scrap metal dinosaur place, we've always wanted to stop at. Its statues are neat, but have some fatal flaws. You can't climb on them, and some of them are tipped over which makes one doubt the stability of the rest of them. Considering the strong wind, I must have heaved those fucking T-Rexes off my son with heroic sudden strength in my imagination as he lay broken and bleeding, about 100 times in the 10 minutes we were at the place, and it wasn't really a scrap metal sculpture Place but was instead a garden shop with urns and fountains.

We discussed geology, fault, plate tectonics, how you know if a tsunami is coming, what to do, how to weave baskets out of pine needles, what it was like to be a seal or a whale, and many other topics in the car. He was not carsick at all, I think because he slept well and wasn't bored or restless.

I was very hobbly and unsteady - and I am exhausted - and I have been lurking in bed for several hours now while he reads from his Spiderman DVD (with all the back issues - thanks Squid!).

I felt good that I keep living up to my promise to make up for the year of not taking him anywhere. I did it a bit over Spring Break with the gardens and museum and exploratorium - and I was super happy to take him to the beach. Even if it was too windy. It was nice to see that he believes me that I will bring him back lots in the summer. I love it when he says, "All RIGHT! You rock, Mom!" This just curls up into me and expands until I feel like I could do anything and that I have at least sometimes done something right.

millipede
Originally uploaded by Liz Henry

The reptiles at Moomin's party were a hit. The reptile party guy brought several kinds of boas and pythons and a green anaconda, along with a monitor lizard and a tegu. There were also hissing cockroaches, a giant millipede, scorpions, and a rose-haired tarantula. We got to pet and hold lots of them!

The super hilarious part for the grownups was how the Reptile Guy played up the fear factor with bizarre and sometimes edgy stories. He talked about myths from the movies about reptiles, but they were all movies like Anaconda, Boa vs. Python, Snakes on a Plane, and other stuff that little kids were unlikely -- in my world -- to have seen!




Then a lot of his humor depended on really sexist comments that also did not quite fly with our little yuppie hippie Bay Area kids, about girls thinking that boys have fat heads, or girls waking up and thinking only about what they will wear and decorate themselves with, or offhand remarks about how boys think girls are gross but will change their minds when they get to be about 10 years old. Pssst, kids, we know that was sexist, right? The highlight of hilarious wrongness was when he explained to us that we should not be afraid of rose-haired tarantulas and that most tarantulas were completely harmless to humans. BUT if you were a nice little BIRD... asleep in your nest... then it's another story. So, say you were a nice little bird peacefully asleep in your comfy nest, thinking you were completely safe, dreaming nice dreams about your girlfriend bird, and her cute little beak and her beautiful eyes and her long sexy legs, and then a BIRD EATING TARANTULA comes up and turns into your WORST NIGHTMARE and eats you up.

Um!

The kids were wide-eyed and the grownups were laughing nervously with horror!

Lulu, one of the youngest kids there, raised her hand and said, "Um! My sister is really afraid of spiders, I mean really afraid!" Her big sister had turned ghost-pale and looked like she was going to hurl. It was interesting to see her conquer her fear. I'll have to ask her mom later about the nightmares.

Then in another edgy gross-out moment that the kids kind of liked, the Reptile Guy explained how cockroaches and millipedes are good, and save our lives, because if we didn't scavengers who ate all the tons of garbage and pizza and rotting corpses of dead animals that build up in the world, we'd all DIE BURIED IN ROTTING GARBAGE.

Nice one!

You would all have loved it! And so would your kids!




I have never had an Entertainer at Moomin's party before - and when I was growing up certainly never went to a party with one - but around here, it happens fairly often. I don't think I'd do it as a regular thing every year -- it is way too expensive -- but it was interesting to try it, and a treat for Moomin.





After our wonderful and scary kids' party entertainer left with his scary and exciting yet harmless animal pals (with their cute little muzzles and their smooth, sexy scales, hahaha) we all sat on a sheet on the back patio and painted some little jointed wooden models of snakes and lizards. I got them cheap in bulk, and got brushes and big bottles of tempera paint at the school supply store. This went over amazingly well! None of us grownups could believe that a whole party full of kids were sitting there in complete silence for so long, concentrating on painting their snakes.




Then I had a bag of tiny rubber snakes and lizards - I think it was 10 bucks for 96 of them. We had hidden them all over the front and back yard. The lizards were about an inch long, so very difficult to find - often very well camouflaged. The kids collectively found about 85 out of the 96. They clamored to get to be the one to do the math of adding up and subtracting and figuring to see how many were left to find. Along the way, it was clear who had found the most, which caused minor resentments... which I think is also fine... In fact as they get older I swear I will have competitions and give prizes just to give them some opportunity for glory AND practice in getting over themselves. (Which is very hard to do - and which takes practice.)

In the meantime they all ran around like mad and played with the stuffed animal lizards and opened presents and played with the presents. Remarkable peacefulness prevailed!

We also made snakes and lizards and other things from pipe cleaners.

I pride myself on thinking of good Activities! I like to have ones where you just give the kids some stuff, and it is fairly clear what to do. I hate things that require a lot of step by step instructions and help from adults. Like, it is somewhat nifty to do something like "create plaster casts". But, not if it is plaster casts of ticky little fossils that require an elaborate process, and you have 20 three-year-olds and their parents in your back garden, and there are 20 ways of doing it Wrong that will make all the children be confused and cry while the parents micromanage them. In fact, I will outright boast that I am a kickass Activity Creator. Here are ONE THOUSAND pipe cleaners. Make some snakes, or whatever you like. Have at it, kids. You can't go wrong with that.






I was highly gratified that a couple of kids mentioned how they still thought of how great the dragon quest and box-stomping Godzilla parties were, 2 years ago and 3 years ago! And, the 3 kids who were at Moomin's minimal sleepover party last year are still using the giant plastic test tubes from our orange juice, milk, and chocolate syrup Mad Scientist experiments.

I think that throwing good parties is my best quality as a parent, so I have to boast a little.

We had pizza, and lizard cake.

After most everyone went home, J. and Nukie, Moomin, Peanut, et. al. went in the hot tub.

I think Moomin really liked it all, and it was just what he imagined when he asked for a Reptile Party. (Though I think he expected a piñata and it is the first year we didn't make one.)

Minnie and I talked about how our parents would do our birthday parties. They were very good at it. In Texas, our parties were "weird" because there were planned and organized party games, like egg and spoon races or pin the tail on the donkey - plus always a piñata. (Other kids' parties in Detroit were all like that, or more so, without the piñata but with party hats and an element of on-your-best-behavior-because-warned-hissingly-by-parents, and best-dresses-wearing, formality. We sat down and ate some cake and ice cream and there was maybe a game of musical chairs. Then there was some playing with the kid's toys and we all went home. ) Other kids' parties in Texas were like, 3 kids at a sleepover making prank calls, painting their nails, and eating microwave nachos, or all being dropped off at the mall to see a movie. (Once I was in TX I don't remember ever going to a boy's party or having boys at my party, which was annoying; that wasn't true in Detroit which was culturally different and also I think more working class.) Anyway, what I remember is that despite being a complete social outcast in school, other kids liked coming to my birthday parties and would grudgingly admit they were Fun Though Very Weird and "Gay".

My parents clearly had a blast doing the party prep and giggling at our antics during the parties. They thought of great stuff to do and would play along with us in everything. The process of making the piñata took about a week, which added to the excitement of the idea of having a party. We made them from balloons or paper bags, covered them in paper mache made of flour and water, and then waited for them to dry before using paint and crepe paper to make them super awesome. My dad was good at making the piñata dance around, and my mom equally good at blindfolding all the kids, spinning them around, and playing up the process of piñata-bashing!



Oh, and if you want to spend way too much... maybe go in with some other parents... here is a list of all the San Francisco Bay Area party entertainers who will come to your house with reptiles. At least, all the ones I found in a 5 minute online search.

The Lizard Lady http://www.lizardladyreptiles.com/
Python Ron http://www.pythonron.com/
For Goodness Snakes http://www.for-goodness-snakes.com/parties.htm
Desert Dave http://www.desertdave.com/
East Bay Vivarium http://www.eastbayvivarium.com/

I don't know what Moomin will remember or what he'll think of all this - maybe the small sleepover was the best in some ways for him - but I hope he has good memories.

That is my party report! Maybe it will amuse you or will give someone ideas for their own kids' parties.

Moomin and I went to the SF MOMA with Minnie today. Moomin made some great comments, snarking at some of Friedlander's photos, "Did a KID take this or what?" (This specifically about one of the "Letters" series, a photo of an "A" in coiled wire on a grungy wall.) He liked the photos of reflections, especially of trees and koi in a pond in Kyoto. The paper wall with bright colors was good too, and Magritte. It made my heart explode when he looked at Georges Braque painting of the violins and said "That's so weird! It's like being in three dimensions!" God... exactly... that is exactly the point. It's seeing from many perspectives at once! Moomin liked all the San Franciso and Silicon Valley photos by Gabriele Basilico -- and I did too.


I thought of Keith Haring and how iconic he was in the late 80s early 90s for me, and liked it that my kid would grow up knowing something about that.

After Minnie left, we went up into Yerba Buena Gardens. Moomin frolicked in the grass, climbed trees, hopped on stones, & then we went through the waterfall, something I have looked forward to doing with him. In museums and at monuments, he always likes to read all the signs and displays, and so I got to hold him on my lap, with the water roaring all around us, in the cool grey cave of deliberate stone, while he read out loud,

No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Photo by opticallyactive

I hope he will not be satisfied, and that he takes these words to heart. It was a good moment. I knew he was thinking hard. We talked about how powerful water is, how it can knock you off your feet, how it doesn't stop, like the ocean doesn't stop. I said that our feelings and our struggle for justice can be like that, for what is right, and fair, and for equality for everyone, and it is little things in every day life, not always big things, like drops of water that will combine to be powerful.

Usually I'm just the benign-neglect mom that says Yes you can have a popsicle and watch another episode of Avatar while I am writing. But sometimes I whip out the preaching, just for a minute!

I am a sucker for monuments and have been known to burst into tears while writing poetry in UN Plaza in front of the statue of Ashurbanipal.

Anyway!

At the top of the ginormous 3 stage ramp we looked down at the waterfall. A guy wearing an "I work for the park" vest walked up to offer to take our photo together! It was so nice of him. I went, "Hey Moomin, come over here, either this nice man is going to steal our camera or it's picture time" and Moomin cracked up. You can tell the guy was cool too, because he laughed instead of giving me a strange look. A while later he yelled "Hey, you! Mom over there! Do you know there's a playground?" I didn't really. He pointed us in the right direction, letting me know there were ramps all the way! I asked him "Hey dude, why are you carrying a plastic plate?" He's not only a nice urban park ranger; he also does circus tricks, like plate-spinning. Oh, I love San Francisco.

Moomin sat on my lap for the ride down a couple of stories of ramp.

The playground was GLORIOUS. I appreciated the wheelchair access very much. Fuck sand and those goddamned wood chips. I have not been on a playground for a whole year! On this one I could go right under the monkey bars. All the levels of the playground were accessible, so when I was at the top of one of the big ramps, I was still on the playground, still in the middle of a little maze of ramps and bars. Someone obviously built the whole playground with wheels in mind. I was very happy to see it was not "skateboard proofed" either.

If they had thought just a BIT more they would have made one of those rubberized slopes just a little bit less steep and I would have gone ZOOMING DOWN IT. It almost happened, on the south side of the pit, but I chickened out.




It means a lot to me to have this good day of bonding with Moomin after a hard year, as I described earlier in this post:Pain, Disability, and Parenting.

Moomin made friends with a girl who had hot pink cowboy boots and a bold attitude. She started riding him about how to be careful on the bars as they were climbing on the outside of the slides. (Giant two-story slides!) He explained back all the ways that he was careful, and they had a long long conversation back and forth about carefulness and how careful they were until I was about dying with laughter. They also discussed Spiderman vs. Batman, which I was curious to hear but I didn't want to follow them around the playground too much. Later as they were playing I overheard him demanding her phone number and asking where she lived. Then, he gave her his email.

I am so smooth I followed his example and exchanged emails with the hot pink boots girl's mom, who gave me her card and seemed a kindred spirit sort of person; academic, literaturey, mentioned women's studies in breath one. Lo... I got home and she had ALREADY BLOGGED HER DAY.

This caused me to love the Internet so, so hard.

I love you, Internet! I love you, world!

pool
Originally uploaded by Liz Henry

This morning's coffee hour was particularly nice. I was bummed about being back in the wheelchair today, and I was in pain. But then everybody made me laugh. My hurting bones baked in the sun. The cherry pie and bacon rocked my world.

There was blog gossip, gossip about blogs, gossip about everything unbloggable, talk of all the upcoming readings and events for theCan I Sit With You? book, "my kid said this cute thing" stories, and I heard that the fabulousLiz Ditz is setting up to do some "kindergarten readiness" consulting.

I got into a great conversation with jennyalice about relationships. In a conversation with her partner she ended up saying to him, "Hey, you know why we feel uncomfortable and out of control? It's because we're actually sharing power and no one's in charge." This is a great thought to chew on. From talking about the whole "domestic discipline" thing with hilarity and sadness, we quickly moved on to talk about power, housework, and responsibility.

Meanwhile, I played with Rocketina, B.'s little daughter. She took off her boots and I put them on again while we discussed gravity, "up", and "down". I suggested that her rubber boots would make a nice hat. One year olds are good for the ego; I was totally a comedic genius for that minute of putting a boot on my head. Little Rocketina (20 months!) then wowed me by pointing at the table marker and saying "Dat's a ONE. And dat's a FOUR. Makes FOURTEEN."

I'm back in bed now. While my leg is still hurting, I'm buoyed up by sun, pie, and a huge dose of my awesome friends.

This photo is of the indoor aquatic center in the East Bay - just across the Dunbarton Bridge in Newark! We went this weekend & it was great!

When I saw this headline about redshirting kindergartners, I thought it had something to do with Star Trek, but could not figure out how on earth the metaphor could be stretched - was someone sending 5 year olds out to get killed first on an Away team to the planet Rigel Beta XI? Or what?

No! It is a sports team metaphor. I never get those! Redshirting means sitting a younger player on the bench and saving them for another season.

But here it means this: Keeping your kid out of Kindergarten for an extra year. Basically it means you flunked preschool. (Or, your parents did.)

Now, I understand if your child has some developmental delays or some kind of health problem that means they are truly "not ready". In that case I am totally understanding and I think a family should do what is best for them and the child. So if that is your child, I'm not talking to you.

But... in my experience over here in yuppieland it does not mean that. Instead, it means people who think one or more of these things:

- their child is too bratty to know how to behave
- they want their child (almost always a boy) to be bigger and stronger for sports and for playground fights
- they want their child (again usually a boy) to have an advantage academically

This is bullshit! It is all bullshit! I call it out on the carpet in a ranty way!

For one thing, if your 5 year old kid is too misbehaving to hang out in a classroom for a couple of hours, I seriously doubt they will improve by being home with YOU for a whole extra year. Since you clearly have done a shit job so far in civilizing it. How hard could mostly-behaving-yourself in kindergarten be?

For another thing so what if your child does have a bit of a behavior problem in kindergarten? What is the big deal here? It's not going down on their Permanent Record is it? So they were bratty in class one day and cried, or threw a tantrum, or scrunched someone's owl. Big whoop! They're in kindergarten! They're tiny kids! Send them to the principal's office ! They don't always behave! And that's okay.

As for the parents who want their nasty little boneheaded brutes to be even huger and more thuggish so they can kick my kid's ass around the playground, screw them!

And the ones who are dooming their kids to a future of being 20 year old high school seniors, for the sake of a possible football scholarship again because they are hulking thugs more physically mature than the other kids, whatEVER... And don't you think that sends a bad message to your kid, down the line?

As for the academic readiness, once again let me remind you this is kindergarten. That place where you learn to sit in your chair for 15 minutes, you learn the alphabet, the names of the shapes and colors, and how to hold a crayon. Come on people. How "ready" do you have to be. Kindergarten usually last for like 2 and a half hours and that is half recess, story time, and snacks anyway. I think your kid can handle the pressure.

Mostly it pisses me off because it is an argument that people turn into something so gender-based and because it is rooted in privilege. It is people with the privilege to pay for a whole extra year of child care or lose the wages of the person caring for the child while it's not in school. So if you are doing this you are throwing your privilege around in a really ugly way even if you think it is "best for little Connor" or whatever, what you are doing is saying that you can't stand even for a second that your misbehaving, too dumb to hold a crayon, hellspawn does not have the maximal privilege known to mankind. Put them in school to get socialized like a regular member of our society and shut up.

Also my solution to all of this hullabaloo is to pay teachers more, so that we get amazing, competent, happy teachers, and they will be able to handle a class full of 5 year olds just fine.

Moomin had his second report card of the year and got very good grades. I went to the parent-teacher conference thinking "THIS time I'm going to keep my mouth shut. I'll listen to what the teachers have to say, since the point of this is for me to find out what they think about how my kid's doing in school."

Did I keep my mouth shut and listen... NO. I started babbling right away, knowing that BS was coming out of me, mostly defensive stuff and long pointless explanations of Moomin's psychology. They don't want to hear it! And it doesn't do any one a bit of good!

Knowing that didn't help me stop doing it. It pokes me right in my tender mom-spot for other people to even vaguely imply that there is a flaw in my child... or in what I do as a parent.

Next time I *swear* to shut up and listen.

They said good things about his imagination, creativity, and depth of knowledge, which was nice to hear.

Things you can get away with wearing if you are not a parent, but might want to use your judgement about, if you are around kids who can read:

Stabby McKnife

This got me thinking. I mean, about 2 percent of my brain thinks "Oh, hahaha, this is a great shirt, I'd totally wear it." Then I think it over for more than a second and decide against it.

What's the most inappropriate tshirt you can think of for a PTA mom of a 3rd-grader?

Please help me satisfy my inner Bad Mom with suggestions. I don't need to wear them or even buy them. I just need to have them to think about.

I'm still tempted by this one , which I've wanted for years. That, or its companion, would be a good one to wear to those mom's club general meetings.

No, wait, my all time worst tshirt to wear to a PTA meeting is.. drum roll...



MILF Hunter

Moomin's friend Hamster asked me today who I was going to vote for. Then he asked if I knew who Dick Cheney was and if I thought that "Darth Cheney" was a funny name for him because he wasn't a very good person to be in charge. Of course, I laughed and said yes. There were some more questions about my politics and about Clinton vs. Obama vs. McCain.

Great, I have a cold, and nasty cramps, and I'm driving down 101 trying to explain about the War and health insurance and abortion rights to two 7-year-olds in the back seat who spend most of their waking hours discussing which Pokemon could kick which Transformer's butt, or saying the word "wiener" over and over and giggling...

It cheered me up hugely when they made up a new movie!!

In their funny movie, George Bush would be the Sith Lord, and Dick Cheney would be Darth Cheney. Clinton would be Princess Leia and Obama would be Luke Skywalker. They could not figure out who would be R2D2.

this is my wtf face
Originally uploaded by Liz Henry

I would like to say thank you to the nice middle school skater punks outside North Star Academy who at my request walked through the building to open the door on the other side for me so that I could park close to the elevator and go into the building on my crutches.

If any of them ever read this, I chewed out the mean teacher in room 142 who chewed them out and I complained about her actions to the school administration. She clearly assumed I was a juvenile delinquent just like she did for you. IMHO you are self motivated athletes and should be proud and also should get some respect from adults... not treated with hostility.

This is of course the same teacher who never opens the door for me when I bang on it or when I make motions at her through the glass and I am on crutches or in my wheelchair. She yelled at me a bunch last fall for opening the door on the Forbidden Side of the building and for using the elevator and she also has more than once challenged who am I and what am I doing there and would not believe me when I said I was a parent of a student at the school.

GRRRRRRRR.

Also I do not care if skaters sometimes damage curbs. Why not just build a couple of extra curbs or rails good to skate on? But no... on the one hand school districts complain that kids are not exercising and then when they do... ban them. SO UNFAIR. I hear that walking on sidewalks also wears them out. Also that driving on roads causes potholes. Also that if you put benches in a park people might sit on them when they are tired. Ummm whatEVER. Things.. and places... they are meant to be used by people.

The principal was nice and listened to my complaint, but he didn't get it... I ... and those kids... are community members and should not be treated like criminals. I have gone to the playground behind the school for 8 years now and so do a lot of other local people. It's a peaceful place and I've never seen anyone doing any vandalism or anything wrong. Instead people show up and play basketball, ride bikes, skateboards, and use the playground. So to go on about "liability" is nonsense.

Moomin is making his first "diorama project" for school! It's for a book report on Max and Me and the Time Machine, about two kids who go back to vaguely inaccurate "medieval times", meet an alchemist and some knights, and see a joust. One kid becomes a knight or squire, and the other his (talking) horse.

After about an hour and a half of painstaking following-the-directions from 123 Draw Knights, Castles, and Dragons there is a very lovely, tiny, knight on horseback all colored in and cut out!

Construction paper sky, bleachers, and grass, and a small clear plastic box colored with different colored Sharpies made the time machine.

There's one more knight to go. Will it be faster this time? Will I be able to curb or at least mask my impatience and my desire to make the diorama myself?

Must keep reminding myself... it's not ME who is in third grade... It is Moomin's vision and skills here... not mine...

No matter how much I love to make tiny craft projects, this one is not for me!

I consoled myself by making a space helmet out of tinfoil, for a stuffed tiger.

While I'm more than a little annoyed that the teacher spelled "diorama" as "diarama" on the homework instructions, it's a great opportunity to point out to Moomin how teachers can be wrong as well as how to look things up in the dictionary.

I'm kind of a jerk about school fundraiser events and in fact it is an area you might call me un-civic-minded. The girl scout cookie thing, the wrapping paper, the cookie dough, the auctions... God I hate the idea of the auctions, I'm sorry.

HERE IS MY RANT!

What the hell people. Just pay your taxes! And go vote for higher school taxes if that's what it takes, and if you've got a wad of money extra then give it to the district so they can spread it out fairly, or donate it to the Teachers' Union to help the teachers get some decent pay. Instead of dicking around endlessly organizing your Box Tops and your toy drives. It drives me crazy... Go get a job. Instead by volunteering you are enabling a classist system that means schools that serve wealthy populations get decent funding, and schools where there aren't a bunch of housewife-role-filling parents don't. Plus, women pressured to systematically disempower themselves by doing unpaid political and fundraising work. That is bogus! I respect organizations like the PTA, and the women who do the difficult politics of them, and YET... again... how about making those jobs into REAL PAID JOBS. You're doing work, ladies. Demand a paycheck for it. What are you teaching your sons and daughters in this meta message? That you... that mothers... that women's work is invisible and unworthy of being considered "real" work.

Chew on that during your next Auction.

And now to the substance of my rant. Ever since I heard of Father-Daughter Dances, which was mercifully only a few years ago, I've loathed the idea. What a weird thing. And it ended up... or maybe started, I don't know, in these grotesque and oversexualized Purity Balls. Gross! Why would you at all want to imply that it's normal for dads to take their daughters on a formal date in a ball gown?

Why do I rant, you ask?

I am asked to participate in a Mother-Son Dodgeball Dance. Oh fine, I'm over-reacting to a cheesy 2 hour long fundraiser and I could pay up the 20 bucks and go to it and sit in the corner glowering in my wheelchair. But no... I won't.

There are so many things to dislike about this whole deal. For one, the implication that I need some sort of special school event to make me bond with my son. For another the weird violent undertone of the whole thing. For another, my son isn't a jock and I hate the way this is slanted to make "sportiness" and sports and dodgeball into a male thing, a boy thing, a thing that naturally as a female I wouldn't normally do but have to be pressured to do.

Here is the flyer:

"Boys... Here's your chance to 'Get Mom' at the thing you do best! Mom... Here's your chance to show him how you get your head in the game! When you've worked that out, get out and shake it! $20 includes admission for 2 with disc jockey, momento photo, sweatband, drinks, and treats! Sneakers required! It'll be a blast!"

Gah!

You can see I hate it just from the jolly fakey sporty tone and the bad spelling.

But further how about that "Get Mom" idea? WTF? Sure... because all little elementary school boys like to play "violence towards women" so much that they need special lessons for it?

And how about that "sneakers required"... does that strike anyone else as an implication that Moms wear pointy toed shoes at all times even to "Dodgeball Dances"? Special reminder! Get wild n crazy and kick off those lawyerly pumps!

Though, the real truth is... if it was a World of Warcraft Mother-Son combat night then I would gladly accept the challenge.

I hated dodgeball!!!

Moomin is sitting at his computer and laughing hysterically at I Can Has Cheezburger? as he talks to himself about why they're funny. Sometimes I go and explain the humor as best I can, but I just totally avoided going into the story behind Dumbledore is Gay?!! Not because I won't talk about being gay with him, but because of spoilers!

Last week I also came across him explaining lolcats to several younger kids. They came to this one, Pole Dancer Kitteh has Second Thoughts and didn't laugh... instead, four blank stares and an awkward pause; then they skipped forward to the next one and were laughing their heads off again.

I thought of all the inappropriate and over-my-head humor that I loved so much when I was a kid. I could sing most Tom Lehrer songs by the time I was 5, and knew where to laugh. It took me the next 20 years to understand the humor!

Maybe the sex-and-drugs lolcats will be like that for Moomin. I feel like a lot of his cultural education is happening mediated by the net, though more is from comic books and books.