head cold

i have a head cold, so i am feeling a little fuzzy. my poor kids have had colds for weeks so this will give me a reminder dose of empathy. no wonder they have been whining and not wanting to clean up or go to school. they have been full of crummy germs.

what has been up out here? well, the la-di-da bday party was pretty fun, although i was a lame mom and didn't get one photo of my kids onstage with a magician, making a rope pass through his abdomen. i have a new job site one day a week, which will be a good change once i acclimate. we attended the fabulous annual international potluck dinner at miles' school on thursday. we went to chinatown yesterday morning and miles spoke with some people in chinese as we picked up a cheap silk dress for maya and a wooden snake for miles ("i'm really into snakes now"). gazing at a window display of metal weapons decorated with skulls, dragons, scorpions and spiders miles thoughtfully remarked that china had the most beautiful things in the world, but was a little upset when his toy broke less than an hour after purchase.

yesterday was a wierd day off school for miles. i took him to the rec center to play basketball after chinatown because the kid just has to play basketball every day. there were a ton of kids there playing basketball, playing a video game, and just hanging around. no parents or adults except me, making animals out of playdough for maya, and the three parks and rec directors. our friend the director said it looked very likely that they were all going to lose their jobs at the end of the year. these are three veterans, with many years of experience. so, would the rec center just be locked up? where would all these kids be? my kid would be doing something semi-constructive, or at least safe, no matter what we had to pay for it. but what about all these big and little boys? who would be watching them?

just part of the bigger picture of the crazy crumbling economy. the school budget cuts are $113 million over the next two year. yes you read that right. things are tight enough now. there are all kinds of people coming together at all kinds of levels to brainstorm solutions for this funding crisis, but it will take time for things to change. in the meantime what will happen at my kid's school? to his after school program? to all the kids at his school who would be pretty much taking care of themselves on this friday off without the quirky but somewhat saintly parks and rec directors?

it may sound wierd, but i am seeing the benefits of being at a "diverse school" a little bit more as this budget crisis looms closer, the rainy day fund gone. if miles was at a school where everyone could just skimp on take out to pay more for an after school program, and make up for the school losing arts funding by enrolling their child in a private class my awareness would be lower. but where he is there are definitely families who cannot do that. and what happens to those kids affects my kid because they are in a community which shares money. it feels a lot closer to home, these budget cuts, when we are at birthday parties with kids from the housing project who recently did not have heat or hot water for a while. it makes me think about trying to do more than just pull out my checkbook again for the pta (which i will do). will i do anything else? i don't know. but at least i am thinking and learning.

maybe my kid is not getting the standard education but i have to say i am learning a lot since my kid entered a very diverse public school. how will it play out, all these families, low, middle, and upper class sharing resources in one building? it almost feels like a microcosm of the bigger picture.

it's not all politics. we saw uncle mike today and maya and natalie had a love fest while miles jumped up and down on a wii board and russell scattered food around the living room and rich ate a bunch of eggs and bacon. went to a birthday party in beautiful glen park where the kids ran around in the green and mud and maya begged for more cake (for an impressive 30 minutes straight) and there was an amazing spread of home-smoked ribs and chicken. rich's band carlton melton is getting press all the way over in the uk. maya has a little boyfriend at her new preschool who is a real catch (he likes swan lake AND star wars).

tomorrow i am facing one of my fears and taking bart under the bay and back, in a feeble attempt to start overcoming some phobias. wish me luck and no earthquakes. it may seem silly but i am quite scared.

nighty night

guilty post

ok, i am feeling guilty. we just arranged a very la-di-da party for maya's birthday, spending a good chunk of change. i did not think it through much, just impulsively called and arranged for a party with the buddy club at the randall museum. of course we need pizza, and cake, and some kind of art activity. it will be a bunch of people i don't know that well, new families from maya's preschool i invited in the hopes of her doing some bonding. now she is saying she doesn't even want those kids to come. and i just donated a little cash to the kids in haiti, but i am feeling so guilty. all this money on a kid's birthday party who would be perfectly happy watching a princess movie with her cousin and eating a cupcake for her birthday.

this is a wierd phenomenon of being human. seeing that what you are doing is ridiculous, but doing it anyway because, well, i guess because it is pretty much the status quo, and what you did last year. and the cycle goes on and on. spending money on a little girl's party that could probably save 10 kids lives in haiti, and there is no way to avoid thinking about it, because haiti is all over the news and i just sealed the deal with the museum (part of parks and rec at least), the pizza people, the cake lady.

this inability to really switch gears in the face of evidence that what you are doing is, well, maybe, WRONG seems to be a big flaw for me, and i know i am not alone.

sorry to be so heavy on this blog lately, maybe that is why no one is reading this except the spammers.

peace out
jd

what shall we overcome?

here is maya with some of the many denizens of mayaland, and miles and maya getting ready for the starr king peace march/martin luther king memorial. lately maya has been very very into her small world play, creating and acting out tiny scenes, with meticulous setting, characters, conflicts, resolutions, more conflicts, new settings. these scenes often involve mean stepsisters, parents and children, brothers and sisters, and jealous characters who want what others have. there are occasional changes of heart and wonderful compromises and surprise endings. i have to admit i enjoy entering this small world. miles on the other hand is entering the big world more and more. the world of money, politics, natural disasters, teams. in between thinking about star wars toys, of course.

everyone was sick all weekend but the cabin fever was murderous today so i took miles to the exploratorium for a little while. on the way he started the "what i want for my next toy" conversation which i steered away to talking about the good parts about buying less things, and which ended up veering into dangerously big world territory including haiti and kids with no homes, food, parents. at the museum he went straight up the stairs to see the decomposition exhibit which in the past has contained very decomposed creatures vaguely resembling rodents or birds, with beetles busily swarming over and through extremely thin and faded feathers or bones. today it was a fairly shocking white rat which had just been placed in the tank this morning. it looked as if it was curling up peacefully asleep, but with beetles climbing into its ears and eyes and over its tail. very intriguing, but i think a little disturbing to miles. on the way home the subject of chicken came up, and the big question about chicken dog (who, as you remember, went on the dog only ferry to the island of dogs almost five years ag0)--is he dead yet? and what would happen to his body? and would i be sad if he was dead?

we read the book martin's big words a few nights in a row and i ended up in tears two times. i guess i am not alone but martin luther king is certainly someone to cry about. miles tried ot reassure me by saying that the man who killed him is dead now.

so what do we do with these kids when the big world is such a mess? my reading list lately: reread ishi in two worlds (this is an incredibly sad and yet somehow inspiring story--i just found out recently that the author was ursula leguin's mother--she grew up with two anthropologist parents and went on to write stories set in the distant future, but with many elements of the northern california indian's culture), read the value of nothing, and have been obsessively rereading old ursula leguin. martin's big words. star wars forces of darkness. bone the dragonslayer. the new yorker. pop up fairies and magical creatures. it is so tempting to keep the kids in the world of fantasy and toys and safety, but then i want them to grow up and start caring about the big world, want to work to make it better. how do we start this path in our kids? the world seems such a mess, so much to overcome, and these guys are going to be the ones to do it. i can't just grab my son's lego star wars ship out of his hands and sharply remind him that their are kids in the world with no food to eat, that every plastic toy he gets kills a tree, what a rotton mom i would be. we try to show we share some of our money, we try to teach the kids how to respect everyone even if we don't love them, we try to recycle and walk and help our friends, but it is so so hard to teach by example. unless it is an amazing example of humanhood, of which rich and i are not.

i am glad miles is at a school which celebrated martin luther king day blasting we shall overcome and blocking the streets around the school off with police cars so the kids could walk in the streets with their signs and get a taste of civil disobedience. even if miles and his buddy were chatting about basketball the whole time.

and i am glad maya is working it out with her little tiny people and animals and box houses and story cloths.

how to move towards big world changes when it is so hard to make it work in the little teeny tiny world of our family. i know it is all about education, but whose? and when, and what, and where, and how? we need a new wh song. we need to start figuring this out together, a little faster and a little clearer now.

bye