barbie and her pets

here are barbie and her pets.

christmas has come and gone, leaving behind several bags of garbage and many new battery operated toys.

looking at the mound of wrapped gifts for the kids last night i had a minor panic attack. how can we raise a generation of responsible people when we keep buying them so. much. stuff. how can i teach my kids not to want so. much. stuff? waah, waah, the fate of the earth is in our hands. i actually felt nauseous looking at the piles.

this morning, however, the presents were ripped through by 6:56 and everyone seemed pretty happy. the unsustainable lifestyle panic over, we enjoyed a dungeness crab, fancy cheese from rainbow grocery, and endive salad feast with my mom and stepdad, topped off with a viewing of elf, many lifesavers, many beyblade battles, some sentimental emails and phone calls, and a little more of that endive salad.

a little sad feeling for loved ones far away but not too too bad.

there will be time to try and correct all our many many many many parenting mistakes (disasters might not be too far off, if you know us pretty well) , or at least try, right? there are worse things than getting too many presents from your mom and dad.

now i need to study my urban rebounder dvd- my christmas trampoline is waiting for me at the foot of the bed. good night.

peace and love

miles' idea

"in the future the world will have a mechanical heart."

i think he meant it literally, but yikes either way!

dickens fair, fog of ennui, babbling

i took natalie and maya to the dickens fair today at the cow palace. just a few years ago i would have been full of ridicule and unable to relate to the "actors"in their costumes and english accents. today i felt very little of this detachment because i was with a four and five year old. maya asked a lot of questions about "dickens world" and although the girls knew there was acting involved it seemed so easy for them to slip into being into a whole different reality, and i kind of slipped along with them. hard to explain, really, but i found myself having a long conversation about india with an indian lady from rudyard kipling's time about sacred cows and cobras and third eyes. ok, i am a super geek, but being there with my wide-eyed girl i really enjoyed the dickens fair.

later i went to the bottom of the hill to watch a film some friends had made called "fog of ennui", starring naughty ninja, jailface, and captain ennui, with other superheroes and villains including furry man, spanish icicle, and dr. exposition. i laughed quite a bit and enjoyed the soundtrack and effects and silliness, but did not relate to the theme, which, loosely, was about fighting captain ennui before he spread boredom to the entire country.

this is probably not making sense but i am feeling today that there is something about having kids later in life, as i did, that throws your mind into a wierd position. or at least my mind. when i should be thinking about getting older, and fighting boredom, and the usual midlife existential crisis stuff (i have the fear of dying pretty bad), i am simultaneously exposed, every day, to little people who are feeling the novelty, beauty, and wonder of life much of the time. maya often GASPS with excitement and does a whole body "ohhhhhhhhhh" in amazement. i feel it along with her. i am so lucky to have this time with her but it throws me off balance too. i feel like a little old kid who knows way too much sometimes. it is confusing.

does anyone out there have any idea what i am babbling on about?

this is ridiculous

this weekend:

saturday:

1.go to randall museum to complete ceramics project with maya

2.after finishing project get sucked into storytelling hour with city college storytellers

3.attend maya's ballet performance, clap

4.attend 4 hour birthday extravaganza at gilman playground

5.collapse

sunday:

1.attend amazing gay and lesbian dance along nutcracker with friends and family

2.travel across town for emily's willy wonka tenth birthday party

3.go out with starr king moms to listen to a fellow mom's choir, sacred and profane, perform at mark's lutheran church

4. following performance head to bar for a few hours. drink hot toddies to fight off new cold germs.

5. following bar time head to SPARKY'S diner and eat curly fries (have not done this in ten years)

6. get home at 2 a.m. and complete meeting agenda for meeting with miles' principal regarding the environmental ed program

i want to hibernate for a few weeks. and then come out of my cave and do some things differently.

on a sadder note, i had ridiculously high expectations for a meeting with my son's principal regarding proposed improvements to the present environmental education program. i got a little too excited, because after the meeting i learned that even though X would be fantastic, and is very possible, Y is business as usual, and that is what we are stuck with for now. big bummer.

i keep writing these serious critiques of education and human nature but they are all in the draft section of this blog. lucky you get to read this fluff instead.

school talk

another fabulous starr king bday party with our warm and diverse school crowd. soccer? check. miles in sports and friends heaven? check. families speaking different languages? check. families of all income levels and backgrounds getting along just swell? check. delicious spread of food? check. warm fuzzy feeling watching the kids together and knowing so many friendly faces? check.

but a few times at this party i had to walk away from conversations regarding school. the conversation where people discuss how they are supporting their kid in chinese, with websites, tutors, trips. we are not really doing that. and the conversation with one parent in particular which is inevitable--she is so aware of the things i don't like about public schools and i fall into this groove with her, about the test prep aspect of learning, lack of choices for kids, shallowness of learning, lack of intrinsically rewarding work, etc etc. go read alfie kohn. it is like talking to him.

so, pros and cons. it is a done deal for miles but i am still debating things for maya, and considering, possibly, applying to a reggio emilio charter school which is opening.

this decision, like so many others, is based on a choice between what may be flawed, but what is a part of our lives, and our community, and that which seems better (at least more progressive, and less focused on producing good little workers of the future), but which is not familiar. i tend to want to keep people together, but maybe this is not always the right thing to do.

i want to find balance in this area. maya and i were at the academy of sciences at the climate change exhibit and the lonely dad of a not yet talking toddler approached us and spoke of how all the suggestions to make changes towards sustainability might be useless at this point. it certainly does not seem like making decisions based on what is best for everyone is our species' strong point. i guess the problem with changing things like our unsustainable lifestyles, or the school where we might send our younger kid, is that *most" human beings, even when they can see the negatives, choose to go with what gives them community. this means sticking with what you know.

principal's chat

at miles' school there are occasional scheduled principal's chats on monday mornings. these chats consist of the principal answering questions posed by parents who do not have to go to work, while younger siblings are silenced by a tray of mexican pastries or sticky buns and the eye candy of iphones.

so many involved parents at miles' school with questions about things like "how are teachers dealing with the subject of race via the caring schools curriculum?" and "how will low-income parents access the tutoring their child is entitled to?" and "can we get a working microphone for morning assembly?"

there are so many huge issues to deal with in this one public school. there are issues between parents with different sets of values and priorities. issues between teachers and students with different values and priorities. issues between parents and the school bureaucracy that forces teachers to teach so broadly, touching on a thousand standards rather than letting the kids get deep into a project, and do some critical thinking. issues between parents and our larger society which does not place much priority on providing a good education for our kids.

it can be overwhelming. i look at my kids and obsessively worry that they are not getting what they need in this stressed out system. that there is a scary vicious cycle going on in which people are not educated to think and do in a way that is fair, sustainable, creative, caring, peaceful. then they grow up and become the leaders in a society where good education is not a priority. and it gets worse and worse, and stupider and stupider.

i don't just worry about my kids, i worry about the generations to come. so corny, but to me educating kids should be the absolute top priority for our society if we think beyond the next year or two.

fantastic cookie party

i made the mistake of peeking at facebook again. aaaahhhhh. seems so easy for most folks, but for me it is a fascinating yet creepy excursion into what my life could be, or isn't, and how other people seem so good at condensing their wonderful lives into easy to digest and respond to sentences and phrases. i really don't know what the heck it is, but it makes me feel kind of agro, and a little depressed. like a nice whiskey might help.
anyway, the holidays are upon us. miles had a greedy tantrum today about how this xmas would be stupid, and all presents are boring except for the nintendo DS i don't want to get him. poor brainwashed little consumer victim. luckily, right after his tirade against my cruelty we went to rebecca's cookie party, and got a glimpse of some fun that does not come in the shape of a handheld electronic device or a ball. rebecca's 4 downstairs neighbor kids were there, and they all kind of congealed and made cookies and got very silly, and then we were down in the basement and these 4 cool kids (7, almost 9, almost 12, and 14) were playing ramones, sex pistols and rolling stones covers on their very own instruments in the most awesome way possible. maya fell in love with the almost 9 year old girl and invited her to her birthday party. later emily played crazy beats and samples on her yamaha keyboard and everyone was dancing around like a freak. i guess eating lots of cookies added to the hysteria. but who needs a DS to have fun?

i will try to hang on and make it through this season of giving--and wanting to get lots of stuff--and painful old memories, and comparisons with oh so rosy facebook existences. at the end of it all i think there will be a reward--new year's in a wood stove heated hot tub up in the damp green green woods of point arena. clear skies and cold air and stars above.

oh the possibilities.