kids and camp fire

i heart p.a.

we fled the city for the fourth of july in point arena. up up and away. we camped at the caperton's with four families, the kids joining and separating organically in the big field, checking out each other's tents, hiking with john, kiccking balls, investigating bugs, and at night toasting s'mores on super long sticks. the kids conked out in seconds in our tent, the sound of wind in the trees and grass lulling us, their daddy a few miles away in town rocking out all night at the oddfellows hall. we saw our delaware friends and kids, miles and edison running around nudies in the heat wave at lisa's. we moved our tent down the road to brian's for night number two. a lot of very late-night partiers showed up and mommy jamie stayed up with them until at least 3, sipping on cocktails and having fun making dumb jokes and appreciating the loud loud music with friends around the fire, as, incredibly, miles and maya and rich slumbered on in the tent which, to me sounded as loud inside as a busy bar. the next day we checked out the parade, and i got tears in my eyes watching some older maybe ex-hippies, march down the street joyfully promoting peace. the extra-action marching band did their funky thing, we saw our friend dressed up as a zebra seahorse, and there was much candy to be snatched up from the street.

it's so so clean up there. i lounged in a hammock at brian's listening to the clinking sound of horseshoes, maya lounging next to me as miles and edison made a pile of firewood under brian's deck that they called a lemur's nest. even the dirt seems clean. the sky so blue and clear, no noise pollution from honks and air brakes and ambulances and yelling crazy people. this happens every time i go up there. should my kids be growing up in a heaven like this??

miles begged to stay until the fire that night but we had to go. the begging turned to threats. he even threatened to hit me if i made him go, and i tried to ignore that one. i tried to be understanding, and i guess i was. i will stay here forever, like a statue, i won't move, if i can't stay for the fire tonight. that's the only thing that will make me happy. that's the only thing so i don't have a fit. so he did end up having a fit. our grown-up friends who were camping another night said it was the saddest thing ever, hearing miles (and his sister who joined in) just wailing and wailing as we strapped them in their carseats and drove up the long driveway. of course the crying stopped when we got some ice cream in town. that makes it all better.

i want to go back soon.

another day

i just finished reading what is the what
by dave eggers. i don't need to write anything about it because the reviews pretty much say it all, but go get it and read it, even if a heartbreaking work of staggering genius didn't do much for you.

in a lame parenting move i let miles whine his way out of going to his day camp today and then ended up reinforcing his lies about not feeling well by taking the kids swimming at the bakar fitness center.
we walked by the huge wooden statues of people and past the men and women working their bodies while watching daytime tv. we got in the pool and joined a few other familes for the parent toddler swim. maya and miles made 10 times more noise than the other kids. look mommy, look brother, i swimming, i swimming! shrieks maya excitedly. the huge windows in this expansive room let us see the panorama of downtown, and cranes building more huge modern buildings in mission bay. miles dives for rings. maya orders us around, and then for a few minutes holds onto her brother in the water as i try to float on my back, just for a moment in this clean room of water.

afterwards we eat our bunny crackers and pineapple on the big green field. the kids walk a hundred yards to the top of a hill and roll down, in uneven lines and circles. when they get back i am told of the 2 cool things they saw, a bird with a bug in its mouth and a dragonfly.

amazing dinner and meltdowns

last night i took miles to an amazing birthday dinner while maya stayed home with her daddy. it was for our friend jessie who lives in a big warehouse on 3rd street. the theme was hearts, unicorns, and italian food, and miles was the only kid who made it to the party of 30+ people. we used to come here and hear bands, or check out small art shows, or sing karaoke, but no matter what the food is really really good. the warehouse has a huge room with a kitchen and loft, and then a burrow of separate bedrooms to the side. there are beautiful much larger than life woodland creatures all over, left over from a previous resident who painted them for a party at the sundancce film festival. two huge tables with booth/couch seating. miles' eyes bug out at a huge bowl of lollipops, a tray of cupcakes, and a tiramisu walking by in sheila's arms. there are many more familiar faces here than i had imagined and i get to catch up with some people while lynn and birgit make monster faces and chase miles around the room.

for dinner: two kinds of clams, crab risotto, 3 different lasagnas, grilled asparagus, zucchini and sausages, lots of salads, homeade red sauce, bottles of wine galore. jessie makes a toast which ends with "to my family who are friends and my friends who are family." there is an epic silly string battle, starring my son, who is looking quite confident and is hysterical with screaming giggles. eric winds things down a bit by projecting a care bears film, about 50' by 50', onto the wall. on the way home, topping off his tiramisu with a lollipop, miles mentions that he would like to go out to more night-time parties.

but today was just awful. miles slept in and then didn't want to got to his camp. we went to the randall museum, which was ok, but after that the whining, arguing, fighting, and not listening from both kids went through the roof. i finally dragged them to the park at 4, but then dragged them right home after miles started jumping up and down yelling that we wanted ice cream which set his sister off wanting ice cream. the evening culminated in miles having a huge crying meltdown because rich wouldn't let him play with the window screen. he explained in great outraged detail that it was the only thing that would keep him " a little bit warm" because to had holes in it. like a nice blanket with holes, just perfectly ventilated and nothing else would do. waaahhhhhhhhhhhh.

of course i am projecting into the fall. did i mention that my ^*(*&*& %^& boss (cassie, you know who i mean) pretty much doubled my caseload??? i am imagining early morning freakouts of miles not wanting to go to kindergarten, me having to go to work, maya not wanting to go to her new day care, both of them wanting me not daddy after work, having to struggle through homework. sounds awful. guess i need to just live in the present and try to take the kids to as many parties as possible while summer is still going.

commander finger does fine

miles went to his first day of superhero day camp today. we entered live oak school and the a teenager showed us the room. kids were milling around playing with superhero dolls and blocks. i hadn't realized when we signed miles up for this camp that most of the kids knew each other. the teacher wasn't overly friendly. miles' friend from preschool was not there as we thought he would be. miles held on to me and asked me to stay. we sat for the circle but then maya started disrupting things (getting up and shaking her booty in the middle of the circle, actually, just as the teacher was going over the rules of the room). miles whispered urgently that i should stay until the end of circle. i took maya to the back of the room but she started yelling about sittin gon her brother's lap. i sensed disaster. so i went back to the circle of kids and whispered in miles ear that we were going. i kissed his big soft cheek. he grabbed me and kissed me back, then let me go...and that was all!

when i returned he was sitting and drawing with a bunch of kids. they each had a superhero they had created through some sort of card game. miles was commander finger. "he points his finger at you and electricity comes out of it." he tells me darby never showed up and they buried a big boy all the way up to his head in sand at the park. he showss maya the bird and we go. i was SO PROUD!!!!!

potrero del sol

this weekend was the grand and long-awaited opening of the potrero del sol park 2.5 blocks away. this is the park where in another lifetime, i would take chicken dog every night. we dog owners would sit and stand around, some sipping an after-work beer, and watch our babies chase each other around the field. in this other lifetime i also had a garden plot at the potrero del sol community garden, where i grew some artichokes, mustard greens, bulb fennel donated by the cool old italian gardener, and flowers.

now the park has a big green fence around it, locked at night. there is a huge concrete skateboard park and it is humming with all sorts of skateboarders, from serious looking 35 year-olds to serious looking 5-year-olds whizzing up and down the tall sides of the bowl. there is also a nice new playground and glorious brand new clean grass (not for long). maya and miles do one of their first sibling team-ups ever when confronted with a funny growling 3-year-old and then some hugging and rolling in the grass.

i had a crush on another dog-walker here. i had long hair and was kind of thin. i came sometimes and sat on the concrete bench and wrote in my journal until it got dark. time is passing and things are changing. if one of my kids doesn't turn into a skateboarder i'll be surprised.

and i can't help but fantasize about the on ramps and over passes and highways surrounding this park and our neighborhood being torn down, potrero becomes a quiet street with houses, bikes, trees, and of course skateboarders.

sidewalk envy

i found myself saying to my son today "i wish this was our sidewalk." it wasn't a really fabulous sidewalk, but he got my point. "but it only has three," he said. "no, ours has three, this one has five." we counted them, five, (he seemed to know how to refer to the number of sidewalk squares from door to curb), as opposed to our measly three. if we had five i would put out some big planters and maybe dig out some of the sidewalk for a garden. i would put a little bench, although i really couldn't do that because it would instantly become an additional room for the crowd that hangs out and drinks in the walgreen's bus stop.

timing is off. preschool is ending thursday and miles said today when i asked how school was that he tried to have as much fun as he could since school is ending soon. this ended up being the week we transitioned maya into sleeping in the same room as her brother. it started while rich was away over the weekend and all seemed peaceful. tonight it hit miles that rich was home and maya was still there, in his trundle bed. there were a lot of big real tears and anguished wails about her being there, invading his space and his mommy time. big awful cries which were finally stopped by a pathetic mommy move of digging up a star wars plastic lightsabre and giving it to him as a way of saying thank you for sharing your room with your sister (translation, stop crying and expressing your feelings kid, or you don't get this cheap toy). the ploy worked, kind of.

wish there was more--more squares in the narrow sidewalk outside our house, more years for play in preschool, more space and mommies to go around. it's hard not to feel greedy sometimes.

miles and nina, artsy photo miles took of friend on preschool camping trip

well, you get behind with the blog and then there is too much to write about. the soofis have come and gone, a whirlwind of kid-watching, friend-visiting, and reminiscing. it is good to still feel close to people who are far away but a little bittersweet when you want them in your everyday, or at least every week or two life.

we spent the heat wave mostly at the 24th and york st water park. maya hogged the baby fountain, the only one that doesn't spray 10 feet up in the air, and miles screamed and ran in his underwear for hours. we keep meeting more cool families whose kids miles will be going to school with, which helps to reassure me that going with a neighborhood school was the right thing to do.

my old friend nat sent a video of himself talking about foraging in n.y.c. and it reminded me how much i enjoy foraging. i have a great book about foraging in the bay area, the flavors of home, but it is really best to learn in nature, with a human guide. tonight while trying to keep maya safe from miles' increasingly powerful soccer ball kicks i took a little inventory of what could be foraged in our back yard--some blackberries, borage, nasturtiums, oaxalis, a dandelion or two--pretty good for plants that have just made their way into our little green space.

it is very quiet here. i think i will go take a long bath. goodnight.

rock on

went to 12 galaxies last night to see rich's band play a birthday party show. i drank several whiskey drinks very quickly and was hurting this morning when maya woke up at 5:20, but it felt good to dance with old friends and watch my husband playing guitar lying on his back on the floor. music was a big part of my connection with my spouse and others in the early days of being an adult and sometimes i forget the power being in and around live music has to bring people together. i mean, you have to pretty much have your mouth in someone'e ear to talk to them at a rock show, and that promotes closeness. there was an awesome emo-core band, touched by a janitor, that took me back to about 1993, and phil crumar was playing with a big happy band including a trombone. it is kind of wierd, many of our friends from the rock and roll days are the ones who are still in the city, and one by one they are buying houses and/or talking about or having babies. maybe the friends in this crowd are ok with smaller spaces or not being home-owners. the rock and rollers have turned out to be the least transient in our community of friends. i'm glad they are still around. rock on. love you guys.

mandarin immersion

there was an article about the starr king mandarin immersion program in sfgate today. kinda' cool...maybe miles will like his school because it is famous (a new interest).


this week i said goodbye to many of the little cuties and their families i've worked with for the past two years. i will miss them.

my best friend and family arrive in town today. i can't believe they have been gone 2 years. we will have to pack in the fun for the next 2 weeks.

bye

critters

last week we saw a baby rat in mckinley park. maya fed it some bunny crackers. camping we saw a wild turkey and some deer. in sonoma there was an immobile hurt fledgling by the duck pond that we spent about an hour trying to track down a ranger for. today we met one of miles' future classmates up at the potrero hill rec center. the visit started a little badly, as the boys scrabbled up a hillside and found lots of broken glass, which i climbed up to help them over as maya whined for me from below. then a couple of kids appeared with a toy gun that shot plastic balls and gave me the creeps. but the kids relaxed and ended up playing a little and hugging goodbye. on our way out we saw a garter snake wriggle through the fence. and from the deck at home i saw 3 yellow lorrakeets (i think?) swooping and flying around our backyards, at one point just a few feet from my head.


last night i spent about an hour reading websites and blogs about urban chickens.

i think i want to make this blog more interesting to more readers. any suggestions, my devoted and beloved audience of three...maybe four...??

my fault?

i took miles on his preschool camping trip friday night. over 70 people, about half preschoolers, at china camp state park. rich stayed home with maya and i didn't know what to do with myself. i wandered around chit-chatting while miles ran free lord of the flies style with a pack of kids. they climbed in and out of trees, tied ropes to things, ran up and down hills in the dark with flashlights, threw rocks, found giant beetles, battled with sticks, pushed and pulled each other perilously close to the edge of a rocky creekbed in a red wagon, and burned marshmallows on sticks to hold up like torches in the night. as i sipped lots of red wine from my cup and watched miles having such a blast, and started to slip into my sentimental sadness about how here was this great community that was going to end soon (miles' last day of preschool is the end of june) and how great it would be if the kids could all stay together, it dawned on me that it was MY FAULT. if we lived in a small town he WOULD be going to kindergarten with most of the kids. they wouldn't be ripped apart to go to 30 different schools and could continue to wrestle and refine their poop jokes for years to come.

so, my tiny devil's advocate says, would that be so great? you grew up in a smallish town and really didn't want to stick around there.

isn't there some happy medium? perhaps i am an idealist but i am going to try so hard to hang on to the people we have made connections with through miles' school. maybe not deep deep level connections, but enough that you know what i'm talking about, friend. with some layers of show and defense pulled back. maybe we really can nurture our little boys' blooming friendships. as we roasted hotdogs with one of miles' buddies and they got giddy giggly making private jokes about the stars and then the next morning as one of his friends gave him an unexpected and strangely hilarious hickey on his back i felt strongly that i was going to help miles keep these friends, even if i had to annoy their parents to do so. and as i sipped my wine throughout the evening and looked into some of the mamas' eyes i thought maybe i will make the time to nurture these seedling friendships too, before they are thinned out by the demands of feeding, driving, and surviving these young kid years in the big city.

soft walls

this weekend we fled the city and went to costanoa with some friends. we met two boys making a crazy trap in a tree for mean girls, heard some native american storytelling, played in an inlet at pomponio beach, spent a lot of time making sure the kids weren't running on the road. miles and emily were given a chance to take a very short ride on horses who had just returned from guiding other horses and people on trails up in the hills. their eyes are so big and intelligent, and so different from ours. a groundhog shared our site. there was a lot of tree climbing.

we didn't get much sleep, though. miles had a little trouble once it was time to crawl into the sleeping bags and stated tearily that he wanted to go sleep somewhere with hard walls. maya couldn't get into a deep sleep THE WHOLE NIGHT which was a real killer. all she could state in her defense was that "the baby lights wake my up."

i was thinking about the ohlone indians and their sustainable lifestyles as we cruised back up the coast. about how we wrecked their civilization and how ours is on the brink of collapse. it makes me glad some people have been working to protect native american indian knowledge from disappearing completely.

my mom and stepfather are travelling cross country right now with their cat molly to begin the next chapter of their lives as retirees in sonoma. they narrowly missed some tornadoes. wish them safe travels.

guest blogger rebecca goes to the prom

here is a guest post from my friend rebecca. she is a very fun and energetic person with that midwesterner's sense of hospitality. she has kind of stumbled in to being a teacher in a high school special day class for "severely impaired" (the district's lovely term) students. last week she helped out with the special olympics AND volunteered to chaperone two of her students whose prom was the first date for both of them. sorry i am posting it a bit late.

thanks rebecca!!!!

p.s. she also sent a link to some cool photos

Happy Memorial Day to you all. Thanks Jamie for giving me a chance to post on her amazing blog. Here’s SF Weekend Wrap-Up – take #1.

Things were hoppin’ in San Francisco this weekend among the under 21 crowd.

Friday was the inaugural SFUSD Special Olympics Track and Field Day at Kezar Stadium. The stadium was filled with over 350 elementary, middle and high school special-ed students from 26 schools plus parents, teachers, paras and therapists of all sorts- speech, physical, occupational, and more. The students competed in a variety of running/rolling events, turbo-jav, ball toss, and long jump.

Emily’s school, FS Key, brought 5 general-ed classrooms of kids along to cheer on the inclusion kids from their rooms. They cheered their own cheers at top volume. Totally adorable.

And my own group of rambunctious high schoolers gave it their all. One threw a softball 92 feet – about the distance from 2^nd base to the catchers box. Way to get SF’s special-ed population on the map!

The weather was glum on Saturday, so Em and I tidied the house, or at least I did, while Emily danced her own version of the entire Nutcracker.

Then, it was off to the next big event of the weekend: Balboa High School’s PROM.

Two of my students had wanted to go with each other. So, I met N. (chaperoned by his mom) and K. (chaperoned by her 19 year old sis) at the In-N-Out Burger joint on Jefferson for some viddles and to shake off everyone’s nerves. They were dressed to the nines – N in a black tux with white tie and K with a lovely cantaloupe colored floor length knit frock and a pretty black jacket zipped and tied modestly to the tippy-top. When we finally made our way into the ballroom’s entrance the mom, sis, and I kept our distance of about 20 feet or so while the young coupled made their way to a table right in front of the dance floor. It was a memorable night for them I think – awkward at first but then eventually doing all the prom things dancing, nibbling appetizers, mingling with other students and teachers, dancing some more. But when the first whiff of smoke from the soon to be smoldering dance-floor hit the consciousness of the family chaperones our young pair was quickly escorted OUT OF THERE and back to their pumpkin, I mean car and sent back home around 9:40.

I had to stay a bit longer just to soak in the ambience. The students looked great. All of them! The young men now dress to match the colors of their dates’ dresses – with some combo of shirt, vest, tie, armband, and boutonniere the same color. So I was seeing guys with the de rigueur black pants with shocking pink or lime green or lemon yellow on top. Really looking sharp. As for the young ladies: strappy floor length dresses of every possible design were all the rage. Along with up-do’s of every possible creation. Sexy and elegant. A fun evening and my first prom in over 20 years. Next year I’ll have to bring a date!

Sunday in San Francisco’s hippest event had to be the annual Capsule Design Fair in Hayes Valley. The rare sunny weather beat down on shoppers, vendors, and French Bulldogs.

Tomorrow’s back to work but here’s hoping you all had an unbelievably lazy Monday.

whole mess of photos

here are some random photos from the last week or so. match the photo to caption:
A."stop attacking your baby sister my big crazy boy cousin, that is too dangerous. somebody might get hurt. what is wrong with you?"
B."mmm, poisonous treat on a stick from mexico, thanks for being weak mommy." C."hmm, is someone going to call the pants police soon?" D. "look, look, daddy, special ladies, pink, music, pink, pink,look!" E. beautiful colombian dancers
F. "my friend and i here don't know each other well and we are males, so we will take turns beating at each other with a hatchet to the drum beats at carnaval. it's fun. now we are closer buddies and want a playdate so we can beat each other some more." G. "see, sometimes we like to be near each other. sometimes." H. "brother, let's smack each other with swords. iyou are teaching me to be tough. don't listen to our smart little pacifist cousin urging us to lay down our arms."

very silly, i know. things have felt a little too serious lately. what the heck.

bye

cloudy

this
makes me feel very frustrated.

backyarding

either the world is changing fast or my view of my place in it is. about 7 years ago i started working on the yard, and went crazy digging things up and planting flowering trees and flowers, flowers, flowers. i still love flowering trees and flowers. but new people have just bought the bottom apartment and in preparation for a meeting with them i made a list of what i envision for the back yard.

(in no particular order)
--a place for kids to play, mess around, dig, make rivers, make stick structures, explore and discover
--a bird, bee, and butterfly haven
--a place to grow fruit, herbs, and vegetables, maybe with a little portable greenhouse
--a place for some environmental education, about plants, soil, compost, sustainability
--a place with sensory pleasures
--pet chickens that lay eggs for us??
--a pet turtle to roam around?
--and if it was possible a play structure of some sort for climbing, swinging, pretending

this is quite a list but wouldn't it be cool?

when i was little we lived in a suburb with a big park behind us and a tiny stream ( a storm sewer, actually) next to us. i remember hours of making dams in the stream, finding forts in the woods, picking tiny watery tasting strawberries and juicy mulberries, finding strings of frog eggs and then hundreds of tiny frogs. we moved from this house when i was about 8, so all these adventures took place before then, without my parents. were they just innocent about the wierdos and creeps in the world or were there less wierdos and creeps then? was it safer there because there are less people per square mile than in the city? i remember once finding porno photos stabbed onto tree branches in the woods. if i lived in newark delaware with miles and maya would i let them wander around alone now? right now, it is hard for me to imagine them being out of my sight. yet i want them to have some time to explore and build in nature, on their own.

so far i see that city kids spend more time with their parents. i like this. maybe we will just have to find ways to do the exploring and building in nature together. i just hope the kids don't rebel against the lack of freedom, from their parents, in their lives...maybe this is all part of the nature of our rapidly shrinking world. we need to be able to have freedom and experience nature, but also to live close to and in harmony with others.

rambling on, again. like an old hippie this time. but i'm not an old hippie, really.

goodnight,
love,
me

no title, really

we crossed the golden gate bridge two times this weekend, to sonoma through the golden hills and back. sonoma always the same, sun, trees, a pool, the horses at the farm down the road. on our early morning park trip i overhear several people discussing money and real estate. there are new ducklings in the pond.

can't help feeling a little overwhelmed by bad news. there was an article in the paper about miles' teacher. her body was found in the water and there are questions about her death, a suicide or foul play. i don't want miles to ever find out about this, so i suppose when he gets old enough to read my blog i will erase this post. while looking for the article i found a link to a photo book this teacher's friend posted. it was so surreal and awful to see pictures of her being a happy silly young person, and reading about the mystery of her death, when not long ago she had just been the friendly new teacher at miles' school making sure he and his friends were good to each other while they played basketball.

the news is just too much. the earthquake in china has me eyeing our own old walls. we drove by a house burning down. there was a six year old with a gun in his backpack in sf. oh yeah, and the world is running out of food.

driving home over the bridge i shut down a little, even after our nice weekend of swimming and playing in the sun. maya was whining and crying and the fog was all around and i gave up for a bit on cheering her up and stared out into the fog thinking about loneliness. feeling sorry for myself in a crossing the bridge mood, and it popped out, in a not good mom way, that i felt lonely. and miles said right away, "but we're here. you have us."

the people i have to keep me from being lonely are all sleeping now. it is too late to call my best friend whose call i missed again, whose son and daughter's little voices are on my answering machine. the heat wave is over. i am going to stop listening to the news for a while.

water park

it is freaking hot today. like, walk around the house in your underwear hot, compulsively buy bottles of gatorade hot, little old ladies carrying around umbrellas hot, let the kids have all the ice cream and popsicles they beg for hot. i picked the kids up and was driving home thinking i wished i lived in the suburbs right now, feeling desperate for a pool to jump in, or a river to wade into. we parked on hellish sunny potrero and went straight to the water park, where we ended up staying for over three hours. there were all kinds of folks there, naked little brown boys sticking their hands into the fountain, girls running and shrieking through the water in their bathing suits. the ice cream pusher sold out of spongebob squarepants ice cream. four preschool friends showed up and miles was in heaven making insane noises and moves in the fountains with them, pushing the giant swing, riding the giant swing, and staring at a boy with an awful plastic gun toy for a full 15 minutes. maya was a little less content,and tired from waking up at 5:30 and launching into 12 hours of whining for the last few days, but she finally relaxed and chilled out on my lap, feeding me bits of dry cereal and watching and listening as the spanish, english, and spray from the fountains washed over us. i pushed them back together almost naked in the stroller and was happy to hear a bling bling covered woman at the bus stop tell me that i had two beautiful babies.

it's so so so so hot.

just stuff

i'm writing this in the trundle bed while miles cuddles for "one more minute" by my side. he has been all over the map recently, cuddly, mature, polite, rude, aggressive, gentle. he has been asking so many questions about what happened to his teacher, and i feel so lost trying to answer them. trying to explain death and its possible causes to a young five-year-old can make an atheist wish she was a born-again christian. listening to him speak his thoughts aloud, rambling on "maybe she cut her finger and her blood all came out. maybe when you die it's like your body stops working and your bones stop working so you can't move and then you can't eat anything for a long time and then you are dead. maybe she ate a poisonous mushroom. let's stop talking about this." i feel helpless. if i say the right thing will i help my child live his life with a less crippling fear of death. what exactly is the right thing to say? we will never know what happened to his teacher, only that she died...so the questions will keep coming and i will have to try and answer them.

today a haze of travel and spending cash up and down the 24th street corridor.
first--miles and i walk to st francis where he eats an evil face pancake and we listen to sun ra and cat power
second--all of us drive up potrero hill to check out the new park at the potrero rec center. this used to be a scary sketchy place, rusty playground equipment and cat poo in the sand, overgrown trees and weeds everywhere. today we play on a beautiful new playground with views of potrero hill backyards with terraced gardens and the bay through eucalyptus trees. a little boy is holding his first birthday party there. the smell of smoky bbq. well-dressed families speaking spanish and english. we see a little friend from miles' school and he follows her around being obnoxious but she loves it.
third-the kids scream out to stop when he drive by miles' school-to-be on the way home. there is a health fair with booths promoting healthy things,a bookmobile, volunteer clown who painted a perfect ninja turtle on miles' face, a dj blasting kmel jams, boys riding bikes around an obstacle course, lots of people from the huge potrero hill projects. miles scores a man's xl t-shirt he is presently sleeping in.
fourth--we cruise up to noe valley to check out a garden on the garden tour that our friend john created. he and andy made the garden for a man they befriended who is blind. john called it a sensory garden. he is a rock sculptor and landscaper. our party crowd friends are there mixed in with the noe valley garden tour people. there is a groundcover that smells like mint when you walk on it. an amazing little stream with rocks in it to move and change currents falling onto a pond. a bridge that rocks slightly when you cross it. one of our rocker friends is due to have a baby in october...
fifth--we eat lunch at barney's and are disappointed with the hyped-up burgers and curly fries
sixth--this marathon goes on. we walk up the block to the little noe valley 24th street park. maya talks about the terrible easter bunny we saw there. miles climbs a tree and impresses a little german boy. maya shoves miles in the back and he shoves her back. time to go
seventh--rich is craving mitchell's ice cream. we get there and there are about 40 people waiting but the kids are ready to freak out so we wait. there are rainbow sprinkles all over the car.
eighth--we go home and watch our first mandarin video, with bao bei the panda. i feel like my ears are clogged. yikes.

and now the kids and rich are asleep. i'm writing all this down, why? i'm not sure. maybe this day to day minutiae will somehow counteract this heaviness that won't leave us alone lately--teachers being mysteriously dead, scary headlines about environment, politics, economics.

maybe if i write this down and someone reads it it will make me feel closer to them. knowing all these dumb little details. i don't know. too tired to make sense.

buenos noches

more experts

(read post while pinching nose shut to get true effect)

i have been dealing with over a month now of very bad sinus congestion. it's really hard to sleep, say my "m", "n" and "ng" sounds, and i am exhausted. it's hard not breathing through your nose. i've been taking claritin and sudafed which have worked in the past, but things are not getting better.

i finally went to the doctor today. she talked to me for about one minute and then said i needed to try a different allergy medicine, like zyrtec. i should stop taking sudafed, as i have been taking it for too long. then see if things improve in a few weeks. she starts to bolt out the door but i get teary eyed and say i don't think it is just allergies, and i really am having trouble functioning, so she quickly prescribes antibiotics and suggests claritin-d instead of the zyrtec. rich just went out and got the medicine--it's claritin and sudafed combined. so what the heck is this dr thinking????? help!!

on another note i am home with 2 sleeping kiddos and my stuffy sinuses. rich is at band practice and i am missing the meeting at miles' preschool with a child psychologist who is there to talk about the effects of the teacher's death. miles is asking about her a lot. as soon as we left school today he said "no one knows what happened to teacher b yet." i asked if he talked ot someone about it but he said no, no one did. he is back to wanting to fall asleep with me next to him, and i am saying sure and hoping it is okay.

the maker faire

well, we passed up a birthday party (gasp!) and went to the maker faire in san mateo. rich was wise and drove down 280 so we missed the traffic jam and breezed through the gates with our free tickets. wow! a huge giraffe robot, make your own marshmallow gun, isolate strawberry dna, see the tesla coils make lightning inside, make your own pet robot, watch battling big robots, see the devilettes and burst into tears thinking about tedd, ride a carousel or bus powered by bicyclists. listen to a musical saw. see a beautiful fountain display created by mentos and diet coke. get inspired by engineers without borders or grey water exhibits. watch your kids get confused by the steam punks. there was much to do, make, see, and hear. unfortunately we could only stay a few hours but we will be going next year. a little taste of burning man without the dust and the distance.

on another note, through park, word of mouth, and the sfkfiles blog, about 10 families of kindergarteners going to starr king mandarin have already connected and are starting to talk about playdates before schools starts and even pta meetings. i can see there is going to be some real community there if we want it. i'm also feeling intimidated by what i perceive as a group of very intelligent parents. i hope miles can keep up there and is not intimidated like his mama.

this photo of a dinosaur stomping on pretty flowers is for those of you who love cute and evil. you know who you are.

adios amigos

lady bugs and worms

it was a garden and party day. this am miles and i cruised down to flowercraft and deliberated for a while but came home with a lemon tree, a blueberry bush, some basil, strawberries, some alyssum miles picked out,a container of worms and a container of ladybugs. then off to cousin natalie's fabulous 3rd birthday, complete with a deluxe spread of food, a multi-colored ice cream cake, a real live princess who put on a show (believe it or not the boys couldn't take their eyes off her, yikes, it is starting), balloon animals and weapons, face painting with sparkles, a craft activity that engrossed the adults for hours, and a chaotic degeneration into mike hurling chocolate into the yard and kids growling and throwing balls and other objects at the adult males at the party. when we came home it was nearing dusk and time to do some planting, as well as release our critters. miles banged on our neighbor's back door and she finally came out to help us place the hundreds of ladybugs around the yard, one by one. i hope they like it here and stick around for a while

gone and gon

so sad and tragic. a young teacher at miles' school has died. how she died is a mystery, the kids were just told that she had died and that the teachers didn't know how yet, they would have to find out from the family. i don't want to speculate on what happened but miles certainly is. maybe octopus crime killed her. maybe she got burned in a fire. was she with her family when she died? where is her family? do you know how she died yet? and then, "let's stop talking about this, it's making ME feel dead."

when i talk to someone on the phone he is whispering in my ear to tell the person at the other end that his teacher died. this type of mystery is not good for anyone, especially my son. all day he just seemed wild, laughing too hard, running too fast.

we also discovered gon at the library. a wordless japanese graphic chapter book for kids. about a tiny dinosaur who lives in the present, in nature, and is in different chapters a member of an eagle family protecting the baby eagles from a bobcat, a member of a tundra wolf family happily nursing and playing with his fellow cubs until a terrible tiger comes along, at which time he must avenge the death of his mama wolf. then he is chomping down trees trying to build a mansion of wood in a stream next to an irritated beaver. amazing art, lots of biting and tail-swacking and anger and oh so therapeutic for a little boy overwhelmed by the world of humans.

what this all has to do with shall we flee the city i don't know.

goodbye

iron will

well, maya finally started walking today, about 10 minutes after she got to the babysitter's. we spent about 3 hours at the doctor's office yesterday as three doctors tried various strategies to get maya to walk or open/use her hands. she fell for NOTHING. it looked very behavioral to them, as to me, but they all said that this was level of persistence was highly unusual in a cchild her age. they thought it might be something medical since she absolutely wouldn't stand up or open her hands. after brainstorming at some type of secret pediatrician round table yesterday it was decided that she is stressed about something and that's why she is doing this type of regression. it was also decided she must be pretty smart, which makes me feel a little better. because overall, i'm pretty sad that maya is stressed/worried enough to act like this. when i got her this afternoon i felt like i was mommying on eggshells, trying to be kind but not baby her, love her and encourage he but not reinforce her whining. luckily, except for a moment when we got up the steps and she said "maya no walk at home" she has been walking, dancing, running, making a mess, and being her pretty much usual happy self. as the dr said, it's hard to tell what kind of spin their little brains put on the information they get at this age. i know maya may have heard us stressing about schools, day care, will she be potty trained in time for preschool, and god knows what else. things have been fast and hectic and stressful. so for now, even if we don't feel it, rich and i need to put on our calmest, happiest, most supportive faces for our little ones. maya told me today that she came from mommy's tummy, maya sleeping in there, it dark in mommy tummy, and it made me think maybe she shouldn't know these strange things yet, maybe it is too much, because she made it pretty clear she would like to be in there sleeping in the dark again, and had a strange little smile on her face when i told her she wouldn't fit anymore...

what's going on, maya papaya??

well, maya has not walked since friday. and she has not used her fingers since last night. if she has to get somewhere she crawls on her knees and elbows. she has a few little cuts and scratches that seem to have been catalysts in this thing. we are 99% certain in is psychological but she is going to the doctor at 3 to get checked out anyway. maya says she is various babies she knows. she wants to nurse a lot. she takes her pull-up apart so it is a diaper. when she crawls around on her elbows being a monster with miles she is a baby monster. so, seems like the reason she isn't walking is that she wants to be a baby again, but if you ask her she'll tell you "my legs hurt", and point to a week-old 1/2 inch long scratch on her knee.

what can we do? just find a balance between helping to satisfy her emotional needs and not reinforce this too much. we were at a bday party yesterday and i put her down about 20 feet from the pinata. when it broke and the kids swarmed she slowly scooched over on her bottom and arrived just in time to find the last goodie--an eraser which she sadly tasted and spit out. she is absolutely not breaking out of character on this one. she holds her cup between two clenched fists bc there is a little cut or scratch on each hand.

it's hard to grow up. i'm also seeing that our little one has quite the iron will.

i'll let you know when she takes her (second) first steps. i hope it is soon.

who woulda thunk it?

well, we finally got our round 2 letter from the school district and miles is going to...starr king mandarin immersion! you can check it out online if you are interested. he definitely wouldn't be going to mandarin immersion kindergarten anywhere else we've considered living. a nice friend of mine said to me "you are an amazing mother, talk about rolling with the punches", referring to this turn of events. i hope she is right, and my funny irish friend is not, who asked, when told where miles was going, "and what did he do wrong to deserve that?"

extinct wrestlers

miles was playing with his mammoth and stegasaurus. "they are doing a wrestling show," (i wince a little) "and using sign language." we met some cute preschoolers from the cesar chavez deaf and hard of hearing program at the park today. and miles and maya gazed longingly through the doorway of the mexican wrestling mask store on 24th street. the mix of cultures we flow through daily is being absorbed by his little brain.

been listening to npr more in the car and being reminded about the dismal state of the earth. we need to start growing more food in the backyard. collecting water. raising chickens. solar panels. preparing the kids for a quite different world. i really think things will change faster than most of us imagine.

too much to say on this topic. i try not to think too much about the future but i want to think about it.

nighty night

the city star

hey, miles' photo is in the paper! check out the online version of the san francisco city star
www.TheCityStarSF.com, page 8 or 9. how exciting (for miles, me, rich, and miles' grandparents at least!)

mclaren park nature in the city earth day festival

earth day in san francisco on 4/20, you know there was a certain kind of party going on in up on haight street somewhere. during maya's nap miles and i went out to check out the earth day festival at the jerry garcia ampitheater in mclaren park. i've heard enough stories to feel a tiny bit nervous in this park, but it was fine. up on a hill with trees all around and a clear view of mt diablo. highlights of this festival included:
---8 days a week and a CCR cover with words changed to make it an anti-war song performed by the very talented guitar band (only 8 here, but the teacher said they have over 5o guitarists in the music program) from visitacion valley middle school. the singer brought tears to my eyes and miles' too (he said loudly "what the heck are these tears doing in my eyes from eye wax!")
--the huge python, friendly turtle and iguana, little rockets to make out of vinegar, baking soda and fuji film canisters, and animal ones and pelts to explore provided by the very laid back but fun tree frog trek people. so laid back it seemed possible that julia the giant burmese python could just slither into the mclaren park woods...
--all the intellectual type alternative green people with their booths full of info about rooftop gardens, greenways, wildlife education for kids, tree planting and care in the city
--our friends who met us there and walked down to the little duckpond and playground with us, and who bought me a ice cream from the ice cream cart
--the views of hills of houses and the bay,between tall trees, twisted good for climbing trees, and waving fields of wild radish, wild mustard, tall golden grass

sometimes i feel hopeful that all these people with their earthday energy are becoming more acceptable to world at large. there wasn't a huge turnout for this festival, but stories about mclaren park might have scared some folks off. i love the idea of a city full of greenways and backyards full of vegetables and fruit trees and of course less air pollution floating right off the freeways through our windows. all i can manage for now is to sign my name to some mailing lists.

met ANOTHER family at the water park this morning while doing some oversized laundry whose kid got into their first choice, buena vista. i didn't feel kicked in the stomach when i heard this news. and met ANOTHER family whose kid got into creative arts charter and i didn't have the urge to scream at her to shut up it isn't fair. and discussed my friend's kid going to private school without feeling like every choice i have made in my life up to this point has obviously been wrong and my poor poor kids are doomed to suffer for life. so, i guess i have reached a slightly more zen-like state about where miles is going to school next year. we find out if he got into another school by the end of may.

time to go blow my nose and apply vicks and drink tea. feel sorry for me. i swear i haven't been able to breathe outof my nose for almost a month. poor poor me.

buh bye

farewell croakie

last night croakie jr was floating around in the water dish. when we fished him out he was alive but terribly bloated. think violet in charlie and the chocolate factory (we just finished reading this, charlie is miles' new hero). i had a bad feeling but miles was optimistic. when i looked online it appeared to most likely be kidney failure and we should rush croakie to a vet. this did not happen. this morning before miles woke up we found little croakie back to normal size, but not alive. it was sad. i left before miles woke up but when he did rich said he cried for a long time. how does a 5 year old understand death? there's a post way back about charlotte's web and how watching it created a lot of questions for miles about life and death. this time he just didn't want to talk about it. he told me after school that croakie had died but when i said i was sorry he just said "that makes me even sadder."

so, we are down to one little frog and we will continue to take good care of him. i think the next pet if there is one, will be stronger and sturdier and maye furrier and friendlier.

also today at the playground there were 5 or 6 teenagers hanging around and talking teen stuff, and wrestling around, throwing sand on each other. only 2 little kids were interested in them, and one of them was my son. he slyly sat right next to them for a long time, pretending to play in the sand. when i asked him what they were talking about he said he couldn't understand what they were saying. good.

and miles said that when he got to be as big those kids he was just going to leave town and live in the country. just get a house in the country. maybe live near brian.

he sounded like he was about 32.

goodnight, goodnight, we miss you little croakie.

babbling on

i took miles to check out an informal soccer team organized by his classmate's mother. it was a very windy and cold day in holly park. we waited a while and thought they weren't showing up, but miles insisted on staying a little longer, even though he was shivering. finally he spotted his friend. and then about 8 more kids running up to the field on top of the hill. i could barely keep up with him as he charged through the trees and piles of mulch to meet them. when we got there the kids quickly organized themselves and began running around a baseball diamond kicking their soccer balls. the usual coach wasn't there, so the classmate's grandma was handing out balls. a toddler or two was chasing the pack. it seemed pretty casual. but the kids did all have matching shirts. and shin guards. and they had been there before. in about 30 seconds miles' body language told me this was not going to work. he pulled on my hand, turned away, got kind of stiff. he had tears in his eyes. he wanted to go home. so we did. and one side of me says it's ok, we'll try again some other time, but the other side of me is worried about him, that he will have to enter the real world of kindergarten soon. where it is not all free choice, where he will have to do lots of things, with strangers, and where (it is likely) his teacher will not speak to him in english. so this side of me is a little pushy, suggests we try next week, asks why not, says there is nothing to worry about, no one will care what he does. tells him there was a two year old there and that was fine. no, he says, it is better at school. and i like basketball. and, the heartbreaker, "i like playing with smaller kids better." my little guy. i really wish sometimes i could keep you with me forever.

i guess there is always the home school option....

tiny tiny pool

wish you could smell the jasmine in our yard. it was another hot day with a trip to the water park, a squirt gun fight in the house (aren't we the progressive parents), and even a tiny urban pool made from the top of the water table, legs removed and placed on the ground. miles and maya and our 3 year old neighbor willow had a blast jumping into our 2.5x2.5 foot pool with dirty feet, squirting each other with the muddy water, and maya even gave bert from sesame street a muddy water bath. he looks pretty funny with his hair hanging down.

days like today of course make me think about global warming again and i feel good to be a city dweller using less energy, in general, with our walks around the neighborhood , use of public spaces, and our tiny little backyard that we do love. i admit, though, we are hopelessly hooked on the car, at least until maya becomes a little more reasonable and the whole bus trip is not a wrestling match.

today

miles helped rich and his friend donnie do some work out back...really helped. i watched him through the window hauling shovel loads of weeds with his little work gloves on

it is a really hot day. we went to holly park for rishi's birthday. the kids climbed the hills, fought with sticks, used loud and obnoxious voices. there were picnic tables in an enclosed area in the park and little leon told me "there used to be a restaurant right here in these woods."
the car is in the shop. we dreamily walked to cortland st to catch the bus, about .1 miles per hour. i saw someone from my writing class and maya blew her a kiss and showed off her booboo and pieceacandy. when we got to cortland i asked a woman with her son if she knew where the bus stop was. and they offered us a ride home in their car! we got a ride home through the hot hot day which was nice as maya was overdue for nap.

their son goes to private school. as, i discovered way more than half of the white children in this city do.

while rich and maya napped miles and i snuck out to check out the youth arts festival at the brava theater. we saw two great plays put on by the SF Running Crew, some kind of theater work training group for kids (like 15-21 or something like that). the first one was set in a public high school and starred a bathroom goddess who advised the kids as they came in and shared their (funny) angst about grades, gangs, fitting in, being gay, being a nerd. the intercome would blast announcements every five minutes or so like "don't forget, students, next week is bring your own toilet paper week" and "due to the budget cuts, graduation will be postponed indefinitely". miles had no idea what was going on but loved it and was especially excited about a part with a bad guy pimp chasing two teenagers around the stage.

we cooled down at the water park. miles played soccer with an adorable tiny chinese boy. the park was full of people running through the fountains. we stopped at casa sanchez to get take out rice and beans to make maya papaya happy.

so. that was just our day. there is annoying dance music out back somewhere, kids playing, it is finally cooling down a bit. i am pennying my little guy. he wants me lying next to him but i want him to do it alone.

all these people and interactions and art, culture, stimulation. what will all this do to nurture my little ones? they are growing up in a very different place than i.

out of sight

this will be brief, as my sinus infection is taking over my brain and it is the end of a long long day. i didn't know where miles was for about 5 minues today. i would have to put a topographical map in this post to make it clear, but at glen park today miles took "the other way" and was completely out of sight for about 5 minutes. we were with another family and miles and the little girl were out of sight in some trees together for a few minutes. then the girl climbed up and said miles was going the other way. we thought this meant the other little path we could see 50 yards away. then when he didn't appear i called him a few times and he didn't answer. i stayed on the hill we were hiking with the kids and the other mom went down to see what miles was doing, but he wasn't there. in his green eagles clothes he had slipped away. she ran around the very large building back to the playground to find him. i waited with the kids trying not to panic. then the other mom returned through the trees and MILES WAS NOT WITH HER. i threw down the backpack and left maya with them and ran. the first person i saw i told my son was missing and she said she saw a little boy alone out on the sidewalk but thought he was with a different woman. the sidewalk by the street? hundreds of yards away? which way was he going? then she said "there he is" and i said where, where and then saw little miles running down the hill to us. he had made this huge crazy loop, like a quarter mile or so?? alone. he said he could hear us calling him. he didn't feel like he had done anything wrong. he wasn't being sneaky. he said he just took the other way. my heart was pounding so hard and we talked and maybe he will be more cautious for a while. but it really was his first time being conscious and independent. not a toddler wandering off without telling mommy. he just felt safe going on a path far from us, far from where i could see him and keep him safe. i still feel kind of shocked about it, kind of nauseous and amazed. we were lucky we found each other.
i guess as the kids get older these things will be happening more and more, but hopefully not anytime soon. would i have this kind of panic if miles disappeared for 5 minutes in the country or suburb? would i be worried about a mountain lion or getting lost in the woods or a creepy guy with a van like we heard about growing up? cause that's what i felt panic about--a stranger taking miles. i want him close to me. i told him again and again today, i have to see you to keep you safe but i know i can't keep him in sight forever.

nostalgia

an old roomate of mine from the wild days in newark and philly was in town for a conference and came over for brunch. we spent several hours reminiscing and he told me about all the people who had returned to the philly area to settle down after years travelling, exploring, grad, school. would we have been on this list if we hadn't chanced into buying our lovely flat in the mission, san francisco. the visit got me stirred up and so envious of being in a place where people are coming back , not just leaving. it made me call c in the midwest to reiterate my endless plea to "come back to san francisco!"

my parents are selling their PA home and moving to sonoma, so don't worry mom, i'm not moving to ardmore anytime soon, but i am feeling, more than ever, kind of isolated by the events and geography in my circle of loved ones' lives.

black lightning and local cultchuh

last night i was up obsessively researching mandarin immersion language programs which, as i suspected, have some definite challenges. are we up for them? we are waiting to find out if miles gets into our neighborhood school's mandarin immersion program, which has pros and cons, but is walkable and sounded like a safe bet in this hellish lottery process. if the program worries me too much, or if miles hates it, we could always transfer, (here is the biggest challenge i'm worried about:

"Some partial immersion teachers of the upper elementary grades report particular difficulties in teaching advanced-level subject matter because students’ cognitive development is at a higher level than their proficiency in the immersion language (Met & Lorenz, 1997). This challenge becomes more pronounced in programs where the immersion language is character-based since literacy development is more timeconsuming and demanding (Met, 2002). Promoting student understanding of more abstract and complex concepts in full immersion programs becomes increasingly difficult by the upper elementary grades resulting at times in teacher use of English to ensure concept mastery(Fortune, Tedick & Walker, forthcoming; Met & Lorenz, 1997). ")

or flee the city. also last night i was up wondering why we are still here. wouldn't it be simpler if we had moved to some nice suburb with nice predictable school systems and cheaper houses and less poo on the street, as most of my friends did? i wanted to stay here for the community, but that community has largely disappeared from our lives. but where would we go?

this morning miles was talking a lot about the mexican wrestling show he saw with maya's babysitter's 5 year old over spring break. he mentioned men without shirts, with masks, one jumping into glass. this isn't a show we would have let him see, but he'd loved it. we ended up making him a mask from some black and blue duct tape and a ski hat with eye, nose, and mouth holes. he said his wrestling name was black lightning and wrestled for quite a while with rich, which i'm sure our downstairs neighbors loved at 8 am.

later i took maya on a stroll around the mission. we went up 24th and got tasty coffee at sugarlump. galeria de la raza was working on an installation. a youth art festival is coming up at brava theater. maya liked a new mural of some wierd looking kids in masks, one of whom she decided was a lion. we walked over to the park and on the way saw some kids painting outside the red poppy.
these two cool young women (i'm feeling old) asked us if maya wanted to make some art. she put many smelly markers up to her nose and made some lines and dots with them. she painted some more lines on a big sheet hanging on the wall. a little 3 year old girl next to us perfectly painted her and her brother's names: xochitl and alejandro. i was amazed. other kids were painting suns, monsters, blobs. an acquaintance from miles' younger days walked by and his mom invited us to a group family camping trip she's planning. a drum circle was going on at caesar chavez elementary, pounding and banging ringing noises through the streets.

and later i took miles to a free introductory mommy and child yoga class up in bernal heights. it was fun, with miles learning to be a seed growing into a vegetable, a butterfly, a snake, a frog, a tree, and even helping me do some stretches. i don't think i liked it enough for $10 a person, but maybe.

and hey i forgot, also stopped at the very close by million fishes gallery to get a schedule for yoga classes they are offering. i went inside and chatted with the woman there. i told her i had been there years before, when our dog chicken's friend geo the dog lived there. i could tell she was from the east and was right, connecticut. we shook hands and she said she was glad to meet me. i liked her smile.

so, my stomach is still sick about the school thing. and i'm forever sad about all the leaving people. but the other people leaving is not my choice. it is out of my control. we have chosen to stay, at least for right now. so i know what i need to do is figure out how to really dig in and find who and what i need to be happy, right here and now. because i don't think there is a place we could go to find it and i don't expect anyone from my past in san francisco to return.

excuse me, it's late. bye bye

chapter books

school list has been handed in again. we will see in a month where the san francisco unified computer sends us...

today another friend told me she is moving. when is this gonna end? i want to catch all you loveable people in a big net and keep you here but it isn't happening. you know who you are, friend and you are one of the dearest i have met out here, not connected to the east coast life at all, just a cool lady neighbor i met 5 years ago, with an amazing family. hope we can keep in touch.

i just finished reading autumn in moominvalley
to miles. i'm sure much of it was over his head but he listened carefully anyway. i've had this paperback since i was about 8 or 9. this is an amazing and beautiful little children's book, about figuring out our own wants and needs and makes me appreciate all the great literature my parents found for me when i was a kid. i hope that miles and maya will love reading as much as i do. some of the books i want to find for him...

all the oz books
the moomintroll books
secret garden
roald dahl
no flying in the house
cricket in times square
beverly cleary
harriet the spy
phantom tollbooth
mouse and the motorcycle
ginger pye

these just popped in my head. any suggestions? i'm sure there are some good kid chapter books written after i turned 12.

wishing we knew more about the fall

wish that i wasn't once again awash in confusion and stress about schools. all that thinking we went through before choosing schools for the first lottery seems like it was an utter waste of time, and now we are trying to figure out what to aim for in the second lottery. immersion? creativity? proximity? i am so so so so tired of thinking about this stuff. the second form is due by friday, then we wait another month while a computer whirls things around and spits things out, then we can still get on a wait pool list and even check out the open enrollment options. goodie can't wait.

starting to feel like i am different from most people i know, who mostly moved away to buy houses or are staying here and sending their kids to private school. hoping i am not, as one friend said months ago and which keeps echoing in my head "sacrificing my children for my liberal ideals." feeling bad.

this weekend? another birthday party, we walked to precita park and bounced in a jumpy castle (with slide, miles has already requested this for next year), watched kids chaotically bat at a stubborn pinata, tried to avoid school talk. maya got in and bounced! finally! on easter the kids found jelly beans the easter bunny sprinkled around the living room and quickly ate them all. then we were invited to uncle mike's for another sugar hunt. i saw THE EASTER SKUNK in his yard, which was pretty exciting. we walked to their park and saw part of a baseball game with a crowd of 90% latino men, horns blowing, delicious smelling bbq, and some close calls and machismo with the umpire.

then last night miles and i hiked up over the highway to check out bring your own bigwheel.
this was a joyous event, me and my boy in the perfect weather amidst mobs of friendly hipsters, watching as big wheels, toddler trucks and tiny tricycles ridden by (mostly)smiling, helmeted grownups in costumes which included evil (evelyn) knieval, a gorilla, a shark, a bulldog, assorted monsters and (gasp) even a teenage mutant ninja turtle zoomed past. i was laughing out loud for much of the race which was a nice change from wondering if i am a terrible unlucky mom who is sending her kid to kindergarten hell in a few months. maybe next year i will take the pink big wheel from our closet, strap on a helmet and some knee pads, and ride that thing down vermont street with the other crazy happy urban goofballs.

better go. i am going to call amtrak to find out options for a cross country train trip this summer....

sunday

went to little nina's 3rd day party at the children's art studio in alameda today. maya did some out of the box and way off the paper hand painting (read:smearing glittery paint all over the paint room with her hands, but they didn't seem to mind) and miles and darby constructed a whip cream machine (it shot whip cream at adults) out of pvc pipes and joints. joy made a homeade cake, thank you.

the croakies weren't looking too good so we spent approximately another 50 bucks and now have a deluxe terrarium set up with heat lamp, air plants, lots of tasty crickets running around. yes, we now have to take care of crickets too, feed them veggies and cotton balls soaked with water and supposedly dust their food with calcium. i admit his is all quite educational, but for who? miles is busy playing teenage mutant engine turtles (don't argue about this one) while rich and i study the frog book and fret about the croakies' ambient temp and cricket diet.

yes, i am purposely holding back about schools because i am so obsessed with school thoughts at this point that if i start writing i may never stop.

today after the birthday party, back in the city i snuck out to try and track down a neighbor and our video store owners to ask them about their kids' schools. it was a perfect sunny afternoon. i chatted with a woman at the bus stop about her 2 year old's harness, as i am thinking of getting one for maya with her elbow issues. 24th st was humming: a mural tour group checking out the water park, people with cones leaving st francis, the old woman by the grocery store with her permanent garage sale laid out on the sidewalk. lots of happy drinking young and aging hipsters in and out of pop's. the bakery smells good, eur0-techno blasting. the neighbor and video store people are out. i stop at the little vintage clothing place to look for a pair of earrings to buy and make myself feel better. virginia is there behind the counter with her 4 month old baby miles. he coos and squawks and smiles and we chit chat but i can't find the right earrings. i remember when i used to go in there almost 5 years ago with my miles that small in his snugli, wandering around on maternity leave looking for some earrings to buy to make myself feel better. on the way home i notice a bunch of trucks on hampshire st and a little tent set up with a woman chopping up fruit. she tells me they are filming a movie set in the mission starring benjamin bratt and written by his brother. right here in my neighborhood. i head home and as i cross the street i look up the hill and see the school to which we were assigned. see, i can't control myself. where miles would probably be in a class of kids from the quite sketchy housing projects, but with a good teacher and principal and kids from all backgrounds in the other classrooms, spanish, mandarin, autism. the school is about 7 blocks up potrero hill, a white building against a blue sky...our neighborhood school...my brain hurts, feels like it is gently crumbling with so much going on inside it.

something else to worry about

well i guess we are not alone. i've been very obssessively reading the sfkfiles blog and so many people got none of their choices. go read the blog for a lively discussion. Among our friends and school buddies at least a third got none of their choices. so, a baby boom, people with more faith in SFUSD, maybe even an effect of so many people reading this blog and wanting the same schools, and what do you get? a whole lot more stress than i really feel equipped to deal with. i was actually just looking at brisbane rentals. but i love my city. i love it a lot.

at rtg today a dad was sitting by the door and 2 little girls were asking him to guess where they were going for kindergarten (so far i know 4 familes got their 1st choice and 4 of us got nothing. hmmm). miles was observing. the dad guessed wrongly may times and finally miles called out with a big crazed smile and a pointing finger "you're going to the school from NOWHERE!!" he thought this was very funny. it made me feel like, well, you can guess.

this photo is rich on his birthday wearing some special gifts.

on another note, we have something new to worry about. 2 little green things, actually. a well-meaning friend gave miles a "frog habitat" (plastic box with a little plastic marsh scene inside) for his birthday. i couldn't stand the begging anymore and we went to petco to get our 2 tiny green tree frogs. now, at least weekly we need to: clean the cage, buy or capture live bugs (but not beetles or ants, frogs don't like them), figure out a place miles can watch croakie and little croakie (i'm afraid these names hold some negative foreshadow) but maya can't open the cage, replenish frog moss and special eco-dirt (yes, that's what it says on the bag), monitor temperature (those of you who know us well know we haven't used our heater in 12 years, but if c. and little c need heat...), and of course talk to our little friends. i am already worried about these fragile little guys, huddled in little spaces with their pulses beating fast in that froggie way under their chins, wondering where the hell they are....

zilch

after all that agonizing we got none of the seven schools we put on our kindergarten application. i guess we are unlucky losers. seems like plenty of people got schools they were happy with but not us. i feel like bad news. like why bum our our friends who didn't have this crappy bad luck.

yes, we will do round 2, waitlist, etc but i have no faith.

this really really brings me down.

Experts

maya and her cast have been on my mind a lot today. i wasn't too pleased at the treatment we reeived at ucsf. things were disjointed--we were sent from one place and person to another and expected to retell the story of what happened. none of the experts really communicated with each other. everyone seemed slightly puzzled. and the final expert, the orthopedist was so busy and backed up she spent less than a minute explaining why she was putting a huge cast on maya. really. i've spent the last 2 days carrying my cell phone in my pocket waiting to hear back from my dr about what he thinks is happening, and hearing from two physical therapist friends that the orthopedist we saw has a wierd/not so good reputation. the more i thought about all this the more i saw that the doctors involved didn't really know exactly what was going on with maya, or what would happen. for an anxious mom like me this is hard to deal with.

as i waited with cell phone in pocket for a dr call that never came we held an iep meeting for a student in my therapy program. listen to this: this kid's family was concerned he might be on the autism spectrum. they mentioned this concern on their intake form with the district but for some reason he was tested only by a speech therapist. she told the parents, after a one-hour meeting with the child, that she thought his social and play issues were mostly due to poor language skills and lack of preschool exposure. he was sent to our program which is only two half-days a week.

my co-teacher and i took one look at this guy and thought he was on the spectrum. very bright. a little hyperlexic. no imaginative play. pouring sand on the same truck over and over by himself for most of outside time each day. echolalia. very distressed by changes in routine. atypical body movements. atypical vocalizations. so we had to go the parents and say what we suspected and ask if it was okay to refer him for more testing. what a rotton roller coaster for this family.

so a very nice very new psychologist came out and tested him and said she saw many autistic-like tendencies but she couldn't qualify him as eligible for services in the school district because she couldn't diagnose him but recommended the parents see a developmental pediatrician. HUH? and we had to make our recommendation that he leave our program for a more intensive five day a week program. this dad was all for getting his son what he needed but what a crummy journey to have to go on.

there is obviously a lot more to write on this subject. but it made me think about how people in my field often talk about the parent being in denial about their child's disability. there are many reasons proposed for this; the difficulty of saying goodbye to the concept of a child you held in your mind, the lack of knowledge about what is developmentally typical. and then there are the parents people complain about who want "too many services" for their kids who think they can cure the kid with the right program. i have a feeling if my child had a disability i'd be right there, trying to get along, trying to be reasonable, but fighting for everything i thought would help.

having trouble trusting the experts.

my little experience so far with maya and her nursemaid's elbow, trivial as it may be compared to a diagnosis of autism has given me a little more insight--it is hard to trust the teachers and speech-language therapists and psychologists when they don't admit it, but don't seem to know what is wrong with your child, or why, or exactly what to do about it.

i have so much respect and admiration for the parents of the kids i work with.

and little you know who, i will miss you so much and know you will do well in your new school.

this dad and i exchanged a teary look during the meeting, really this felt like our first eye contact. taking care of kids, our own and other people's, is deep. or at least it should be

the whole school

the other day everyone was so wiped out that long, long naps were taken and the kids stayed up late. it is hard to predict the mood around here lately, but as we puttered around the house until about 9:30 everyone was mellow and there was very little fighting. miles and maya collaborated on a family portrait of maya's obsession the caperton family. i started playing the same few songs on guitar that are all i have learned in 15 years, deb lenert's magnet moon, token white boy's dark, which was one of tedd's favorites, and the little man song. a lot of the time lately miles pushes my buttons, but look at this sensitive little rocker. he strummed along with a cute little self-conscious smile on his face and when i told him dark was one of my friend tedd's favorite songs miles said it was his favorite, too. and there is a picture of tedd, he pointed out, pointing the the mantle. maya tried fairly successfully to play guitar with one arm and tended to her babies. the darkness outside seemed to calm everyone down.

we are getting ready for the insanely huge crowd we invited to miles' birthday. are we really really crazy?? we invited the whole school. and almost all of them are coming. plus our remaining friends with kids. we will probably get a bounce house. please please rain, stay away, cause 60 people in our apartment will not be pretty...