hanging out with a bottle of wine, foraging, chocolate-making

it was a nice three-day weekend except for the occasional tantrum blowing through. i am trying to learn how to parent my passionate children better, but it can be hard.

a neighbor friend came over one day with wine and our kids wrote comic books and worked on projects while we talked and had time to drink the whole bottle in little cups. it felt spur of the moment and nice to drink wine during the day.

an old friend visited town for a chocolate conference. he makes fantastic chocolate and lives near a volcano in hawaii. we got a little group together and spent a few hours foraging for native edibles in glen park in the mist and rain. the dog got muddy, kids got muddier. we picked lots of miner's lettuce and chickweed, wild mustard and radish. then we brought back the greens and made a big salad to nibble on during an extremely impromptu six-hour chocolate-making party with new friends and old.

so, there is school stuff and scary budget stuff and work stuff and tantrumming kid stuff. but there is also chocolate, the not-appreciated-by-all pleasure of foraging for food, and friends getting together to drink wine and make things. it was a nice weekend. i need more of this.

xo in the sky, wierd post

my iphone camera did not quite capture it, but we saw this full moon and "x" made of jet plane exhaust. maya called it a hug and kiss in the sky.

maya is almost six now, and we celebrated her birthday with an old fashioned party full of candy, cake, games, streamers, and horrible but much appreciated kidz bop music. maya received a pricey american girl doll named mckenna, who has been renamed thorn hunt, and who is currently being held and styled by her new mother. she came right from the american girl orphanage, but maya also gave birth to her, and i am the grandma.

lately things have seemed stuck in ruts, both in the personal and public worlds, which can be depressing and overwhelming. seeing negative cycles repeat and expand can be scary. this morning, however, i was so happily surprised (shocked, really), to see miles playing with his sister and her new doll. miles agreed to be the dad, and made a blanket for thorn's cardboard bed. i think he was entranced by her long thick hair--miles has been into hair for a while. he used to comb mine when he was just a toddler, and combs his sister's before school in the morning.

it was a nice reminder not to put my kid in a box--he may be obsessed with sports and video games, and buying more video games, but he also tends to dolls, loves his dog, and watched martin luther king's "i have a dream" speech on youtube 3 times this morning.

there is a key to unlock the part of every person which is capable of being caring and nurturing towards others. for miles, it may be hair. whatever it is, it seems like finding and taking care of this part of all of us is important for our future. i hope that nurturing this part of the next generation will be up there on the government's list of educational priorities. how to make this happen??

the horse boy

i just watched a documentary about a couple seeking help for their son with autism, the horse boy. they end up taking him on a journey to what must be one of the most beautiful places on earth, mongolia, and riding horses for days on end as they met with shamans and are accompanied by the guide and his six-year-old son. at the end of the trip the boy had changed, with less tantrums, more social connectedness with peers, and was using the toilet. the father considered it the work of the shamans, the mother was not so convinced, but they both seemed strong in their belief that the trip had drastically changed their lives. they now run a center for children with autism that specializes in equine therapy, out in the country in texas.

i couldn't help but feel as i watched this quite beautiful film, that just about any kid in the world would come out stronger after a journey like this, knowing that it was all for him, to help him, that his parents were 100% there for him, and that each day he could do his most preferred activity for hours, ride horses, through an amazing wide open landscape of water, green, and blue sky. AND there was a little boy there with him, all day, a funny little friendly typically-developing kid who just jumped right in to playing with him. chase, animals, pretend fighting and wrestling, silly sounds. wonderful.

of course my mind went to two of my current obsessions--that all kids need the kind of time this kid lucked out to have--time engaging with the natural, not man-made world, of plants, animals, rocks, water, mud. and that kids with autism need time, lots of time, to play with friendly, typically-developing kids.

i am in a city where these things are not happening for many kids, and the inequities are hard to take, especially when the kids are just entering the world of school. why do some preschool kids with autism in our public schools end up in places with lots of nature and great opportunities to become friends with peers both with and without disabilities? why are others assigned to schools with mostly asphalt, and ONLY kids with disabilities to interact with? i know things are changing, and "we're working on it" but how is that going to help the kids who are missing out on opportunities right now? it is driving me a little crazy. i am becoming more of an inclusion advocate, especially for preschool. kind of wandering all over the place here, but that is where this film took me. check it out if you have a chance.

i have probably written this sentence too many times on this blog but ALL kids need more time in nature. we are working on it at my kids' school, but it is slow work.

2012 is the year i am going to be louder and squeakier calling out what i think could be much better in my little world of special education. i will just have to be patient, thoughtful, and see if i can use some of that drummer's timing i used to have when i call it out.

winter staycation 2011

some photos. it has been a beautiful two weeks off with sun, fog, presents, treats, video games, tennis camp, golden gate park, zoo, cliff house, beach. one of my kids is going through some kind of emotional change, and there have been a lot of tears and angst most evenings, but that is a story for another time. another year has rolled by, another opportunity for resolutions-- which are kind of ridiculous in many ways, but i still have a little hope i can change for the better.

micro bake sale for the food bank

maya and i just finished our micro bake sale. we made peanut butter cookies with hershey's kisses a few days ago, and we managed not to eat them all. this morning we set up a little table and sign right outside our front door. i put the beck radio station on pandora. we cozied up on the cold stoop in our jackets and started waiting. there was something very zen-like about this activity. we looked across the street at the blue sky above the houses and let the traffic flow before out eyes. then the random giving and not giving and getting began. our first customer was a woman who worked at ucsf and gave us $5.00 for one cookie. then many people walked by with just smiles or averted gazes. a happy woman bought two cookies for $1 and ran off laughing on high heeled boots. a confused looking man carrying lots of paper and plastic bags walked by and we gave him two cookies for free. a man walked by and said he would like to buy one but didn't have money so we gave him a cookie. then he ran back with a dollar, he had bumped into his friend down the block, and shouted a huge "merry christmas". our grim-faced neighbor came out of the house and biked away. another neighbor came out and gave us $5.00 for a few cookies for a kind co-worker. a woman from around the corner gave us a dollar for a cookie, then returned in her car, jumped out and gave us $5. more people walked by without looking. a woman tried to communicate with us in spanish, was unsuccessful, then filled a bag with about 10 cookies and walked away, leaving maya with her jaw hanging open. a neighbor from across the street came over and gave us $5 for "la nina" and told us in spanish about how he only had boys and some other things i could not understand at all. bob marley came on the radio. more people went by without stopping. bikers in the bike lane checked us out. we said "yes!" if we got a smile. miles made a half-hearted attempt to join us for a few minutes, but then went back to his video game upstairs. a ups man came by with two boxes for us from delaware grandparents. it was warming up. then one more woman came by with $5 and we told her to take the rest of our goods.

now we are going to take the money to the food bank. i have no idea if this will help the kids understand anything. money, giving, getting, it is all pretty random in our world. our bake sale felt nice, though.

wreaths, bogeyman

photos are wreaths made by me, miles, and maya.

we had a potluck wreath party and it was a success. friends brought evergreen, bay, and olive branches, dried poppies, berries, artichokes, tiny oranges, clippers, dried flowers. a bunch of ladies and kids sat close together on the back porch in the cool sun and attached plants to wire, and plants to each other, while sipping on hot mulled cider with rum. it was very nice.

just now i was cleaning the greens off the back deck, leaving the back door open as i went in and out, when i felt a stab of fear. there have been two very violent assaults on women in my neighborhood recently. i thought about the door being open and unattended and closed and locked it, then went around the house checking in closets and behind doors to make sure this predator had not snuck into my home. i don't know what i thought i would do if i found him, and this feeling of being scared of a bogeyman coming into my house is awful.

there was also a homicide not far from here not too long ago. is it paranoid to be hyper-vigilant, or is it denial to not be?

i am missing chicken, my big strong barking dog who made me feel safe for many years. i hate that there is fear in the air on my beautiful sunny day off.

hour wait

i've spent the last hour on the playground and in the cafeteria at my kid's school, waiting for a 10:00 meeting with the director of the green schoolyard alliance. there is a lot going on around here. the food pantry volunteers laid out pasta, potatoes, pears, garbanzo beans and sushi wraps on a long cafeteria table and families lined up to fill their bags and boxes(i scored some nice pears and brown rice). this happens every tuesday. kids played holiday songs on trumpets in a circle on the stage. fourth and fifth graders did some kind of project decorating t-shirts with the inclusion teacher. first graders ran excitedly across the playground with their lunch bags, on their way to see the sf symphony. a crew of gardeners whacked weeds and shrubs. "hi jamie" random kids called as they walked by. a car drove around the corner too fast blasting heavy duty hip hop. pre-school kids are riding tricycles around on the little playground and whooping, one crying. i spot my son's best friend loitering as he walks across the playground in the sun, doing a little dance on the four-square court before he spots me and calls out "can miles come over to play at my house?" now the clarinet players are rushing to the cafeteria with their instruments. a seagull flies overhead. the playworks coach helps a kid in a wheelchair hand over hand to shoot a basketball into the net. parents lead other parents on school tours, anxious questions rising into the air.

we are meeting to talk about making green changes at starr king school, and that is exciting. but this has been a sweet wait, reassuring me that even on the huge expanse of asphalt there is plenty of life here already.

why not?

i had a pile of miles' old clothes to give away lying in the hall and maya found this size 6 suit. silly me, not thinking of my daughter! here she is the "office lady" with what looks like her first paycheck (actually a birthday card).

maya wore this to friend's party but then chickened out on the front stoop and wouldn't go inside wearing her suit because she thought everyone would laugh. she hid behind me and shuffled into the bathroom where she changed into a pair of pants the hostess graciously provided. so sad.

we are once again in the throes of christmas greed and entitlement but i think maybe even my materialistic son is starting to think about all the ideas floating in the air about sustainability, sharing the wealth, etc. he did not have a huge fit when i said no way to a toy all his friends seem to be getting, and that is a step in the right direction. we are going to have a little bake sale outside our house and donate the money to kids who don't have toys.

speaking of donations, our kids' school needs them bad. here comes my shameless plea. if you are reading this and have the urge, please go donate at the starr king website. supporting the schools really is an investment in the future. it feels good, too. pass it on.

more creeping normalcy

(maya's photo of trees at potrero rec center)

i was at my kids' school this morning. we seem to spend quite a few weekend hours up there. it is a beautiful spot, and walking distance away. the school is perched on top of a hill with views all the way across the bay on one side, and across the city to twin peaks on the other. some days we go up there to water trees, or weed the garden. there are monthly work days where parents clean, scrape, paint, and build shelves. this morning a bunch of dads were working on a project with ladders and tools and extension cords and a few of us moms were up there to talk to the principal. the moms were there to brainstorm with the principal about the best way to find and hire a new kindergarten teacher because it is VERY hard to find teachers for the mandarin program. miles and the other kids rode bikes around the playground and hit balls against the wall in the fresh november air.

after the meeting i went to office depot. i am being moved from the school site and program i have loved and helped develop for five years. i am being moved due to the bottom line. the district needs the same number of speech and language pathologists to serve an increasing number of kids for the same amount of money. i just threw down quite a bit of cash at amazon for materials for my new site. at office depot i paid for color copies of all the picture communication boards and visual supports i have made for my classes over the years. i have to leave the materials i have made behind and my last day is tuesday. i am going to have to buy a laminator for my house as i don't feel comfortable going to a new site and asking them for funds for copying and laminating when i will be serving walk-in preschool kids from the community who don't even attend the school. basically i am being placed at a site and asked to provide therapy and materials for students with a budget of $0 to do so.

so, this is the new deal for me. less money to work with more students. kids at a school which is increasingly dependent on parent resources and support. everything is trickling down and interrelated in my little microcosm. i am identifying more and more with the talk about aftershocks and the 99%.

i really do believe there is enough to go around, and i have no problem having a little less money and spending time and cash nurturing my kids' school and my students. it just won't work unless we can all do the same, though.

cuddled in the bed in the dark with my two kids. we are watching movies with the excuse that one of them is sick. it's quite nice. i love these little people and will do everything i can for them.

insider's visual representation of mandarin immersion kindergarten math

it has something to do with the number concept "10". not sure what else to say about this one!

3 birthday parties

life here is almost too full and varied. just popping at the seams with interactions with all kinds of nouns.

saturday after dance class the kids and and i went to a birthday celebration and memorial for the brother of one of miles' classmates. he was shot and killed five years ago, and part of the idea behind the celebration was that we need to heal and love ourselves first in order to become a more peaceful community. the other big part was about creating unity. we arrived at the park in the bayview and people were milling around the rec center, but soon there was a call for everyone to hold hands in a circle. brother clint poured libations and said the word "ashay" each time he poured the water and mentioned brave people who had died. he asked us all to think of people who had died. then a young boy poured the water into some earth under big trees. a healer came and led us all in an exercise where we repeated her words about loving and taking care of ourselves. then the family released balloons and shouted happy birthday to their child who had been killed. much food was cooked and there was a storyteller as well, telling african folktales. it was a pretty amazing display of positivity. later maya joined in painting a mural with miles' classmate. this event has been held every year since the murder.

this morning miles went to a birthday party in the marina and maya and i waited while he celebrated his friend's birthday by bouncing on trampolines and playing dodgeball. as we watched all the tourists and kids riding expensive bikes and adults walking briskly with purebred dogs i felt a million miles away from where we had been the day before. we sat in the sand and watched a blimp move surprisingly quickly across the sky as we made a little sand and stone village. later we went to yet another birthday party in brisbane for an old friend's little boy, just a normal kind of park and a mix of brisbanians hitting pinatas and jumping in jumpy castles.

living here is sometimes not very grounding. time seems to pass so quickly when we can move worlds away by driving across the city.

i guess i should mention that adding the this feeling of being in many worlds last night was the monthly mom's night and we were out pretty late at el rio, watching bands rock hard until way after bedtime. the bands felt close to my age, one all ladies with a stripper who was almost bare, one a mexican punk rock band with close to a cult following shouting along, and another a devo-type band, the phenomenauts, super silly and awesome. at the end of the night i found myself talking to a young guy who had just come back from the military, where he had been for five years since he turned 17. he seemed pretty lost.

tonight at story time maya picked a book about two friends who are separated into different classes when they go to first grade, and a book about martin luther king. after we read both she got the first grade book and found a picture of the two friends holding hands and said "it's like in this book, she is white, and she is black, and they are like BEST FRIENDS!" which may sound trite as you read it but which seemed perfect coming out of my five-year-old's mouth tonight.

more feathered friends, please excuse the rant

it really must mean something, how many of these posts end up related to birds. hmm, any ideas?

this has been a hard week as the reality has sunk in that i am being moved from a school site i have actually looked forward to most mornings for the last five years to a big unknown. not only will i miss specific kids, parents, and staff, i will miss the lovely location of the EES where i have been working, and i will REALLY miss the service delivery model, which was pretty much just playing with kids, singing and reading to kids, and helping them communicate along the way. waah, i will miss it. i will be going into a more clinical model, but i will wait to write more about that when i have more of an idea of what it will be like.

i do know this is an excuse to spend money i absolutely do not have on fun new preschool games and activities. hello, credit card.

i guess what is unsettling is the fact that i have worked in a field in one school district for eleven years and no one who is in charge of my fate (assigning me to kids and schools) has any idea what, if anything, i am good at. i admit, i have started to feel like i know what i am doing with a pretty specific population and service delivery model, but poof, i am being placed elsewhere, a little tiny part of a big machine which is basically just responsible for shifting people around so that there are enough therapists at enough schools to cover enough minutes of time and enough assessments with enough kids. so, i might have felt pleased with my work as i watched good things happen with my students, but the district does not look at my experience as meaningful, in the sense that it should be added to the district's supposed goal of improving outcomes for kids. no one is evaluating the work that is being done. sure, i have had evaluations but they don't go anywhere or mean anything. since things have been going well for the kids at my site it seems i would be continuing on or developing/helping improve upon the model within which i have been working (i had some fantasies about doing this kind of "bigger picture" work), but this does not even get considered. by anyone. except me.

teachers out there, you know what i am talking about, right? i will see how the new assignment goes, but deep down i am becoming more disassociated and less caring about the big picture. i still care about my students, and always will. but what can all my ideas about best practice come to when there is a bottom line so much more powerful that any person's experience or expertise? i think maybe hearing so much news about moving backward in so many ways in the bigger world due to money woes (republicans, i am talking about you) is making this seem harder. can't we be moving forward and enlightened anywhere?

sorry about that rant. i am sure it will be all right. at least i have a job, and maybe change will keep me on my toes. the world will be fine and occupy sf will rise up and we will all become happy socialists and there will be peace. the kids will start behaving themselves and brush their teeth vigorously twice a day without reminders. little caterpillars will stop eating all my backyard vegetables.

we visited a new friend of maya's from kindergarten today. they live high on a hill overlooking the green swoops of mclaren park, with a backyard that included "the back 40"--trees for climbing, two swings, a chicken coop with a little chimney, and honey bee boxes. ok, i am incredibly jealous, but we do have lots of wonderful culture and food around here, which you can check out while you scrape the garbage off your shoe. it was a sweet visit and miles and i even got in exactly 40 minutes of mommy vs. son soccer time on a big drizzly field.

here are the kids with the adorable chicks, and maya's lovely rendition of a girl turkey.

my saturday, i mean sunday

hi,my name is miles millman and i am guest blogging on my mom's email for my first time ever ! i had just gotten into a cool comic called ''the prince of tennis'' because i had just started playing tennis again because i had found my old tennis racket in an old box in my mom and dad's room . for some reason i thought that i should start playing tennis.

and for the whole day i was basically playing tennis. at first i went to a birthday party and i thought it was so boring that i was going to die because the only reason i came there was to eat pizza and cake. it turned out there was only cupcakes and we also had to wait an hour to get the pizza.

and then later on i had to wait at home and do nothing except read the prince of tennis while waiting for my dad to come and take me to the park to play tennis with my friend named jed who also played tennis like me. then it turned out that we played my dad and jed's dad instead of me playing my friend jed. the rest of the day i have been typing this email for half an hour and right now i am saying the words you are reading right now and my sister and mother are laying in the bed and are trying to go to sleep but they cannot because i am talking to them right now for them to give me ideas. that is the end of my day so far, so bye i will talk to you on my mother's blog some other day. bye.

p.s. i am not spoiled rotton i just sound like i am

inclusion drama group

i was asked for permission to have my son participate in a inclusion drama group run by a mental health specialist at his school. my first question was--is miles having problems at school that i don't know about? less than a year ago he was having anxiety problems and near panic attacks about not getting picked up on time from his after school program. remember that? i sure do. no, he was chosen as an open-minded peer model for a group that will have a few kids from general education/mandarin immersion and a few kids from the special day class.

yes! interesting that my son and i will be doing some of the same work/play--getting kids with and without autism or related disabilities together at school to play. i asked him about it and he just said he got picked to be a "good role model". if only he could be one of those for his sister at home...

i am all for a curriculum of creativity, peace,tolerance and inclusion at school--if this generation of school-kids doesn't start to get it right then we really are in big trouble, all too-many-billion of us...

2011 day of the dead

my camera battery died for day of the dead (right?!), so i only have these two to offer from halloween.

halloween was halloween. i felt proud of my son because he wanted to be a "big fat chicken" and was comfortable in his very homemade costume. the yellow rubber gloves pulled over his shoes for chicken feet were my favorite, but he was most pleased with the fat aspect of his costume, a pillow stuffed in front and back which got a lot of friendly punches and attention. maya had the brilliant idea to be a toilet with a remote control skunk popping out, but we just couldn't put it together over the weekend, so she was a witch. we met our friends on potrero hill, saw some great decorations, and scored lots of candy. the kids were ready to go home after an hour--it has been a busy few weeks.

tonight i went out alone to garfield park to check out the day of the dead celebration and altars. once again i fell into a peaceful and somewhat awed state. every year the altars are more beautiful and elaborate. some are pure family, with grandmas and cousins, missed fathers and mothers. some are for the community, with various places to write messages to and thoughts about dead friends and family. people with beautifully painted skeleton faces walk throughout the crowd. there was a heavy metal altar. a skateboard altar. probably my favorite was an altar with information about the tribes of what is now called california--how most are gone, but some members live on. there was a tree in the middle of four converging paths. each path (north, south, east, west) represented something different, such as illumination of the mind, facing the darkness. you took a handful of cornmeal and walked to the center from the direction you chose, placed the cornmeal under the tree. incense is in the air. most people are talking and some are laughing, a few look sad. lots of marigolds and the smell of weed too. many little candles. all kinds of san francisco people are here, definitely many folks younger than me. a sorrowful sounding brass band walks by. a man is breaking the rules and selling ice cold beer from his cooler on wheels but that's ok.

halloween was a little unsettling because i can't help but notice every year how my kids are getting bigger and bigger. each halloween reminds me that this holiday will be limited--that all too soon my babies will not want me with them on halloween night. day of the dead feels more calming and grounding to me. somehow knowing that there will be people out celebrating us when we are gone, with a photo, a scrawled message on a piece of paper hanging in the air, or an elaborate altar with candles and art and sculpture is comforting. i can hear the sounds right now from my house, a bunch of drums playing together, over the waves of traffic noise, people pounding on their drums. i know there is a throng of people still out there, one man playing kool and the gang through a speaker, others holding hands and missing someone, most just enjoying being alive.

life story

"when i am in first grade then n. will be in 2nd grade. when i am in 2nd grade n. will be in third grade. when i am in third grade n. will be in fourth grade. when i am in fourth grade n. will be in fifth grade. when i am in fifth grade n. will be in college. when i am in college n. will be a mommy. when i am a mommy n. will be an old lady. when i am an old lady n. will die."

maya's breathless account of the lives of her and her cousin, with sad ending.

local local, love

this week we attended two evening school events. free, fun.

one was a visit from local author and illustrator ashley wolff, who came and illustrated a book that the kids "wrote" by yelling out crazy comments from the floor in front of the stage where she stood with a big pad of paper and super speedy drawing powers.

another was a visit from aiko cuneo, in conjunction with scrap (the scroungers center for reusable art parts). the kids went crazy and made unique and very wearable hats. they got to use glue guns and some kids got very creative.

thanks to the parents who organized these great events. we are lucky to have our kids' elementary school as a resource in the neighborhood long after the school day has ended.

and parent conferences were not too awful. after just a few months maya's teacher amazingly sees all the talents and subtle challenges i see in my kid. it feels nice to have your kid understood.

today maya said we were lucky that we can walk to a bookstore (there is a new branch of the dogeared books empire opening on 24th street). we started to make a list of things we could walk to:

dance class

school

st francis ice cream parlor

the bookstore

the library

the water park

the donut store

a's house

g's house

the skate park

the bakery

m's house

the garage sale

walgreen's

million fishes art gallery

the rice and beans restaurant (aka casa sanchez)

and in an emergency...the hospital

i just have to say that i had such a nice day with my two children i started to feel sad thinking about them growing up and leaving me. just walking around the neighborhood, and then attending an ice cream social birthday party at st. francis (no wonder they were so nice,they were fully sugared up), watching them play with their friends. then holding hands walking home in the dark past some very far gone men, hipsters smiling at us on their dates, passing toddlers reaching for our party balloon, an ambulance speeding by, the horrible window displays at walgreens and then home-- i felt so in love with my offspring. sorry if that sounds strange, and they both returned the feeling, maya with her many mommy i love yous, and miles with a request for cozy time. he read his book smushed next to me in maya's bunk, then climbed into his own, and said a now rarer "love you", too.

enjoy it while you can.

hiiiii

mask made in art program at sf parks and rec afterschool enrichment program

in a very excited voice maya told me about this girl who had said hi to her near the jump rope area. she demonstrated how the girl had said "hiiiiiiiii!" with a huge exaggerated smile, standing on her tiptoes, with her arms up over her head kind of in a diving pose. she showed me this several times, cracking up when she said the big "hiiiiiii". i said the girl must like her a lot, kind of picturing a patronizing and slightly older kid. then maya told me that the girl was in the class "where a lot of the kids are hurt. one is even in a WHEELCHAIR!" and i realized she was talking about the primary special day class.

interesting that maya thought of this as the class where "a lot of the kids are hurt". i explained a little bit about wheelchairs, but really, only one kid is in a wheelchair, there are just a lot of kids in the class who move a little differently. and kind of awesome that maya was so amused and thrilled at the way this girl greeted her. maya thought this girl was just "SO FUNNY!"

somehow this anecdote was an antidote to the description i heard this weekend about the wondrous acres of land, knitting, high teacher student ratio, wood shop, and focus on social emotional development and creativity to be found at the private school where my friend's kid just started. i am not in denial, and know my kids will have an education constrained by budget issues, and ridiculous testing, and many other obstacles. but at least they are in a place that is open and welcoming to all.

hiiiiiiiii to all of you, too.

scary witch

howdy

sorry about this very generic photo of pastorino's pumpkin patch. but look at the pumpkins! the hills, the mist? the cute children! and what about this creepy creepy witch? maya listened to her gravely and then bravely posed for this photo.

this is the time of year when we are confronted with lots of images of death--graves and bones and ghosts and leaves that have fallen off the trees. the whole cycle of seasons feels a little strange here, because there is no winter. no cold dead time followed by spring. instead there are days of gloom and days of sun with holidays that evolved over thousands of years in very different climates attached to the calendar on the fridge.

sometimes i think not having the progression of cold to colder to coldest to warm to warmer to hot to cool, with accompanying holidays and natural events to celebrate (light returning ,winter solstice, various religious holidays with candles etc. , harvest festivals and feasts when there really was a crop t0 harvest, egg focused holidays in the spring when birds build their nests)--really throws us all off here in san francisco. seems like food is always growing, and it is pretty much never the dead of winter, and birds seem to have babies any old month. maybe there are more rhythms but i am not feeling them. maybe this is a problem with city living.

there were many memorable thoughts and quotes and vignettes since i last wrote, but none so memorable that i actually remember them. too busy with work and work and kids and driving all over the city and picking up kids and work and dishes, and walking dogs and putting kids to bed, making lunches, iep meetings, driving, work, picking up kids, dropping off kids, work, meetings, making dinner, you get the picture.

last night we saw a huge yellow moon in the sky and talked about how big the earth is compared to the moon and the sun. miles stated that "we learned about the solar system today" and then proceeded to share some vague information and some false information. they are not learning much science at school, and although miles is definitely able to read to learn at this point he mainly reads to learn more about the world of manga soccer players. we googled image comparisons and the kids were impressed with the size of the earth and the sun. it got a little cosmic. maya found out that we are in just the right position from the sun to be alive. miles said something about the earth moving two inches around the sun each day which was a little frightening to hear. i guess that will have to do for now and i will have to relax about my 5 and 8 year old not being able to find good jobs when they grow up.

i am tired of seeing worksheets. i am ready to throw all the worksheets in the recycling bin and teach my kids something about the world,but then i would have to be a non-working homeschooling mom. which is something that does cross my mind occasionally.

i read in the paper today about rick perry making a big deal about expanding offshore drilling, repealing environmental protection laws, etc. a nice republican lady i know mentioned those crazy environmentalists and i just held my tongue. i had heard obama talk about his jobs bill the week before on the radio and had stupidly thought it might go through. it made sense to me.

andtoday a kid was being mean to other kids at soccer practice, again, and we graduate school trained adults just didn't know how to deal with the problem, again. because it is a hard problem to deal with.

how smart are we peoples?

anyway, tomorrow i am going to sonoma for a ladies overnight getaway. can you believe that? at bedtime i got many extra hugs and i love yous from my wonderful children, which i enjoyed. i will miss them too.

walk to school day

here are some happy folks walking up the rocky way to school for walk to school day. i had some work at home time today and found myself listening to some experts on what the lack of nature in our lives is doing to us. interesting stuff about how urban planners 100 years ago prioritized proximity to nature and the whole fascinating subject of how many of us are no longer interacting much with the world people evolved in, but with the world people created (they stated 53 hours a week average screen time for american teens). anyway, i better get off this laptop and go out in the back deck in the rain, or at least pet my dog, or water a houseplant. just five minutes a day of being in a natural environment (and the definition of THAT is up to you) will improve your mental and physical health.

iiiahh

walking slowly home from dance class yesterday maya and i came upon a little table by the house of color run by iiiahh. three ladies wo-manned the the table which was covered with photos of objects and curious objects such as a george washington era wig made from a diaper, a box which when opened contained a tiny theater with a tinier mouse in a mousetrap watching a show, and a felt puppet whose teeth were made from a hair clip. People kept stopping by, mostly asking if the things were for sale (they weren't) and many staying for a little while to check out the objects and ask questions. maya was pretty delighted. there was a tunnel with a flashlight inside that you could switch on, a sequined black jellyfish made from an old purse, and more.

this could have been an art show to encourage recycling but there was more to it. i looked at the web site and it turned out that in previous weeks these ladies had held swap meets where people were encouraged to stop by the tables to look at a mouse house made of bread and little wooden puzzle pieces, and to trade something they had with them or at home for one of the wooden pieces. the artists then took home the swapped objects they had obtained, photographed them, and then made them into something new. look at the website--it explains things much more clearly than i just did.

this process appealed to me quite a bit, as a way to increase the circles of communication, encourage reuse, and inspire people to do something different with their time. i am sure there is a more scholarly way to put it, but it was just kind of fun.

nothing heavy duty in this post, nosiree! if you click on the iiiahh link please take a few minutes to check out the awesome clip of a man advocating for sensible spelling.

brushes

report from the mission

busy busy. here is a photo of chloe's grave. 2 weeks ago maya tossed a ping pong ball into an empty glass bowl and won a little fish named chloe. she was a good little fish who swam swiftly to the surface to eat her food each day, and seemed to enjoy the music she often heard living near the stereo. on friday, however, chloe was found floating, her soul gone, slightly curved. maya cried a little but then got right to the business of mourning. we wrapped chloe's body in a scrap of black flowered fabric, and buried her under the fuschia. maya topped her grave with orange and red flowers, and ran inside to draw a picture of chloe (seen here, wet from the rain). she found that the cement block near the fence was a good place to sit and look at the grave and think about chloe.

all level-headed and calm and purposeful. i remember when miles' frog died he was so inconsolable and angry. i recall hysterics at a similar age when i learned my dutch bunny had died without me. my mom told me that when she was seven she had a year where she was so disturbed by a relative's death that she threw up every night. i hope i can preserve this peacefulness about death in my daughter.

my mom came to town to witness the starr king fireballs' game with ace defender grandson miles-- a good and close soccer game with the powerful sunnyside eagles. we hit a birthday party and my mom and miles and i hiked the glen park canyon loop while maya put on a show with her old buddies. that night we went out for a special dinner at lolo, owned by the parents of another awesome starr king fireball. miles was treated like gold with mini-tacos and sliders while we ate delicious artichokes, tuna tacon, crab tostadas, and felt very special as were comped three glasses of wine. afterwards we wandered to valencia street and ate organic ice cream and bought vanilla beans. spoiled rotten.

today maya and i went to a new friend's for tea. i have walked by the store front pictured above on 24th for over a decade and wondered at the little cut out newspaper faces in the window. this turned out to be our new friend's house, which tourists were examining as we arrived. the pictures are stipple portraits from the wall street journal and to me seem to mark the passage of time somehow. inside was a not so san francisco like space--a storefront, carport, warehouse-y kind of place with little twisty staircases and leaky roof and extra small doors for the kids' rooms and skylights and both high and low ceilings and friendly interesting things to look at everywhere. there was a little monkey bar set up the dad had nailed right into the carport roof. the tea party lasted about 6 minutes but we stayed for five hours as the afternoon evolved into a grill party with the neighbors on the other side of the shared outdoor space, kids running back and forth between houses. we met the neighboring musician and artist couple who put out oysters and fancy cheese while maya and her new friend danced around to the ultra lounge music in tutus shouting "no you can't" in mandarin and shaking their fingers in the air. our friend's parents live right in the warehouse with them half the year and we talked in the space between the houses as the kids played hide and seek and neighborhood kids came out of nowhere to play soccer on the new and enviably wide treat street sidewalk. we ate grilled salmon and mushrooms and cauliflower and talked about fish extinction and architecture and of course our children.

last week someone we know with three little kids was seriously injured by a car--in the ICU paralyzed with a traumatic brain injury. it brought up lots of feelings and i remembered working in the sf general ICU during my internship, people astonished at what had happened to them--shot, strokes, car accidents. i worked side by side with an amazing speech therapist who could jump right in to help people understand what happened and how they were now going to figure out together how to communicate, to eat and drink. once a young woman came in, 21, who had been hit by a car outside a nightclub. she was paralyzed from the head down, tears pouring noiselessly down her cheeks, staring at us, and i almost blacked out but my mentor SLP just stayed calming by her side. she ended up six months later with only a limp, a kind of miracle. the person we know has started to move her hands and feet volitionally, and smiled at her children in the hospital.

incredible that you could smile in a situation like that, but people do. i am thinking about her a lot and hope her recovery will be a good one.

what does this all mean? i wish i knew but i don't.

RIP chloe,

get better, parent friend,

be careful around cars,

and love to you, readers

chapters of randomness! crystal cave!

1. my kids' school: yippee, test scores went waaay up across all the grades and classes, which makes people feel good. i will try to look at this as a very positive thing, rather than think cynically about what these standardized tests and requirements of adequate yearly progress yada yada yada really mean. like, possibly, the destruction of good public education. i do feel proud of the hard-working kids and teachers. let their learning continue to be high-scoring AND joyful.

2. on that note miles' teacher left without a single day's notice. she seemed kinda' unhappy, and we will never know why she quit except that there were "personal reasons". of course. miles has let me know that it doesn't matter if they do homework this year, and that they are not learning anything this year. it is shocking how quickly apathy has set in! the sub seems like a nice man, but is not really teaching. miles has been saying things like " i flew a paper airplane because i wanted to see if mr. X would mind, and he didn't mind tooooo much." hopefully there will be a new teacher soon but in the long run it is all just fine. i had a completely senile teacher in 5th grade who assigned the same homework every day for weeks before parents started to notice something was up-then he disappeared and left in his wake a trail of subs who could not pronounce anyone's name. i remember this year as the first year i was around pot, which was being smoked AT RECESS in a stone pagoda right outside the school.

3. we had an expanded group for mom's first friday out and i love my mom friends! woo hoo. you know it is a good night when you are singing the chorus from that song about canada at the bar (take off, to the great white north,etc.). these same great moms showed up for the soccer practice at potrero del sol on monday and one of them brought her mini-rex bunny with a portable pen for all the kids to pet and commune with--very cool and unexpected.

4. maya got together with her old old old pre-k friends from 3 weeks ago and they played pretty hard for a few hours, rampaging through about 20 changes of clothing. it was REALLY FUN according to maya who informed her friends that kindergarten had a lot of rules including: 1. you have to sit IN your square! 2. you have to sit criss-cross! and 3. you have to LOOK AT YOUR TEACHER THE WHOLE TIME YOU ARE LEARNING!!! (maya was pretty incredulous about this one). she told them that you get to play to learn in english class but in chinese time you just have to learn. there was one upsetting incident involving a lower case "a" that got my mama hackles up but she is sleeping in her uniform right now and seems to be going along with the program.

5. today we met up with our brisbane friends and ended up picking blackberries which were growing dangerously intertwined with poison oak at san bruno state park. this was my first time here (thanks corinne) and we got a good haul of blackberries and saw lots of butterflies and thistles and thistle down seeds and eucalyptus trees and ferns and a little bog and even bumped into an old painter friend from the philly days who now lives in noe valley. there were also four little kids running around with their shirts off making obnoxious jokes and laughing raucously.

6. after that we parked in a mysterious warehouse's parking lot and followed our 7-year-old friend (and graduate of the brisbane hiking camp) up a completely insane trail to the crystal cave. there were several spots which were so steep and narrow that the only way was to hold onto a rope and pull yourself up hand over hand. more poison oak and nettles everywhere. it was so dense and the trail so narrow we really felt we were walking through the brush, and then there it was--crystal cave! high enough to walk in and about, hmm, 15 yards deep. i almost expected to see cave paintings from 10,000 years ago. we were very lucky to have friends who knew had to get to this cave. the kids got out their headlamps and chisels and hammers and we found a whole bunch of beautiful crystals, growing like little teeth or cities out of cracks in rocks. i found the best one, a crystal that was perfectly clear with a perfect point, about as big as a jellybean, but better.

writing day, co-housing

friday morning i met with a friend of a friend who is a writing coach. what i should really be doing is going to bootcamp and running 3 miles each morning, but instead i talked to this nice lady about finding some direction and focus for writing fiction. we will see!

that afternoon the kids and i went to a fundraiser write-a-thon at 826 valencia, aka the pirate store. maya ran to hug and hold on to her ex-pre-k teacher who had been there writing for four hours, and dictated a story to her which included jet packs and hot lava suits. miles sat down and went to work for an hour with a writing prompt to describe an alternative origin of the universe (he included a nice sensory description of a god's sandal). when maya and i went to look for a bathroom there was a little wait and a nice man told us there was a bathroom out in the back if we were desperate. i'm desperate! yelled maya. the nice man took us out back and chit chatted about 826 valencia and maya starting kindergarten and his own little girl starting kindergarten and we made some jokes and i was totally star struck because it was dave eggers! a real live famous writer!

last night we went to my brother's for a bbq with an old high school friend who now lives in a co-housing community in oregon with her husband and little girl. the focus of their co-housing community is sustainability and it sounded really interesting and good. along with sustainability and sharing resources there is also being able to walk out and visit a friend across the way while your kid is asleep, and to walk home safely after a few drinks. the kids go out and play in a pack kind of like the old days, but different. it brought up a lot of feelings about the people i love who have scattered and how i still wish i had this kind of community in my life, with these people i love. i guess it is not meant to be so i have to make the best of what i have...which is a lot.

haven't said this in a while, but i miss and love you, far away friends. wish you were a short walk away across a safe and quiet field of kids playing, waiting to have a drink and a laugh in the dark. maybe watching some fireflies on an end of august night.

report from the first week of 2011-2012 school year, snacks

well, we made it through the first week of school and are into the second. this is a wierd post, i feel it coming...

my daughter has sailed smoothly into kindergarten and says she loves it. maya has not questioned the fact that her teacher speaks chinese 90% of the day. today she was chanting "hong suh, lee suh" and when i asked her what it was she said that it was a pattern (of colors, in mandarin). her class is the SFUSD dream of diversity. she has two very good teachers. i helped a little at lunch today and saw maya just chilling out in the huge loud room, eating her lunch slowly, pretty smiley. outside in the sun during the too short recess she got to play an exciting game of cookie monster with her cousin and the fabulous coach d.j. of playworks. a few stumbles and trips but she is keeping up with the crowd.

miles' entry into third grade has been a bit bumpier. this is a public blog, so i won't say too much, but there have been some clashes between his new teacher and the kids and parents. i am trying not to get too sucked into the negative thoughts and worry, and be supportive instead. the principal asked if i would help make posters from the caring school curriculum for all the classrooms with some basic norms and rules and expectations. for kids AND teachers. how we all need to treat each other. we are all learning this stuff, but to get along in the same building, and really in any public space, there have to be some ground rules. poor kid also hurt his legs at soccer camp and i can tell he is deep down worrying about a possible damper on his professional soccer career. i am waiting to hear back from his doctor. we are all missing the very long and lazy days of summer.

this was an especially good and lazy summer and i need to hold onto those sunny memories as we move into the high gear of the school year.

(and let me say or the record that i am personally against benching kids unless it is a last resort, and even then it should be an opportunity for teaching and relationship building, not punishment. as in, let's sit down together and make sure you know why you are sitting on this bench and let's figure out a way it won't happen again. kids need to run around!!!)

as for me, i have a full caseload already, and there is a lot up in the air as to what will unfold at my sites this year. i guess i can't divulge any details as this is a public blog, but the special education redesign in this district really does seem to be happening. i think it is a step in the right direction, but hope that there is more systematic implementation of the next steps. one teacher was bawling on me at the end of the day, her class so full of needy kids, she loves them all and wants to teach them well but on the 4th day back was feeling it was "a cluster f**$#".

there is a lot being asked of people without many resources to support them.

today i cruised the bulk aisle at safeway and walked out with bags of whole wheat goldfish crackers, pretzels, cranberries, graham crackers. i made three big packages of snacks, one for my daughter's teacher, one for my son's, one for the after school program. i gave money to the teacher i work with to buy snacks for our preschool class. the food bank can't supply snacks anymore.

we are all in this together, this creation of every new day here, the kid raising, the kid feeding, the votes for parks and schools and clean environment. ask someone who takes care of other people what he or she needs tomorrow. don't eat any meat if you can. do what you can to spread the wealth.

sorry to be preachy and rambly. i promise my next post will not be so.

p.s. here are a couple of photos from the annual folsom street food festival. beautiful, fun, tasty. among the gourmet delights miles managed to find a cheeseburger (a REALLY GOOD cheeseburger)

first day

here is my little girl on her first day of kindergarten. she walked right into school with the line of cute little strangers. i came home and called my mama who recommended i watch the beautiful and cathartic documentary "the cats of mirikitani". i have cleaned and shopped like a good homemaker on my childless day off and i am itching to go pick up my babies.

end of an era

today was maya's last day of preschool. yes, i cried. partly it was sadness at the relentless march of time that has made my babies grow so big so fast. there was a party where the teacher read stories written by the big kids in literacy group ( all five of them) and the kids acted it out. it was an amazing creative collaborative, with kids just jumping in to take parts and no one fighting over who got to play who and how they should do it. they worked it out with just a tiny bit of help. and you could see the end result of two years of preschool--little kids who can cooperate, create their own narratives (with some elements lifted from movies, video games, and pop music--all gamely accepted by the staff which refused to let kids wear commercial characters on clothes), sing, dance, have fun, and express their feelings.

and now it is on to the world of public school, where i have been overwhelmed the past few days with the reality of the need to raise test scores, the need to be in compliance with special education law,and the grim budget scenario. mandates to do lots and lots of things with very little money.

but somehow the kids still seem pretty happy.

politics these days are so scary and the problems seem related to some real basics. not to sound like that person who wrote about all she needed to know she learned in kindergarten, but can't we have a little more creativity and cooperation in congress? if the preschoolers can do it, can't you guys?

at the end of the preschool graduation a beloved teacher (who will now forever be even more beloved) handed out candy necklaces she had made for all the big kids. we had advance notice, and had prepped our 8-year-old with some ice cream before the party. i expected the little kids and siblings to start dropping like flies on the floor crying and yelling as their big friends walked around with shiny candy draped around their necks. but nothing at all. and the big kids started opening their necklaces up to share. miles scored two pieces.

we will miss you very very much room to grow preschool.

xo

wildflowers, wood line

we managed to spend a lot of time outside this weekend, which is a very good thing.

saturday we all went to starr king to help water trees and weed the garden. even with a mild hangover it felt sweet to be in a garden with seven kids who were excited about pulling the most weeds, finding big radishes, and washing carrots to eat. walking through the starr king open space we saw all kinds of wildflowers. later maya and i went to the nursery and came back with a shovel, aphid eating ladybugs, and some geraniums to cheer up the deck. the compost pile was chock full of big roly polys and we spread them around. the garden has been a little forlorn lately, and needs some tlc.

today we met our friends at the presidio, and walked (on top of, only fell once) andy goldsworthy's wood line. very worth checking out, maybe it will become a birthday tradition. continuing on we saw a very big bird of prey we could not identify in the grass near the path. then we hit presidio bowl for a few hours of '70s rock, strong drinks, bowling (i was awful, boo hoo), turkey burgers and shooting and driving arcade games. we walked back up the wood line and i was pleased to see miles with his friend talking about different birds they had sighted, and dragon books they are reading. she is one of his few girl friends...i like that he has at least one!

tomorrow my summer ends, with professional development that starts at 8 am. i will really miss these wide open days and weeks.

ok it has been a while

hello friends

we are back in the city, and i have just returned from a night out with my starr king moms for our first friday night home in the mission. whiskey, wine, talk talk, and oysters and pate at a pop up restaurant in sugar lump cafe.

it was a fantastic few weeks out of the city. we were at camp mather for a week, where miles learned ping pong and we all got a healthy dose of RELAX. no cleaning, no cooking,no driving. we spent our days under tall redwoods, swimming and eating (and playing ping pong). maya rocked the talent show with it's a hard knock life. we swam (and played ping pong) and met friends and it was mell0w and beautiful out under the redwoods, climbing rocks and no traffic or crazy people. after that we spent two weeks in sonoma, just me and my two beautiful kids. ice cream, the bookstore, pizza, swimming,the chocolate cow. sun, trees, sun, blackberries,wine, reading, playing on the stage, grandma, wine, soccer. our dog ran free, the kids and i a happy threesome. i watched disfunctional tv all night. we looked at real estate ads before we bought lattes and baked goods on the square in the morning. we saw the stars every night. we caught crawdads and a tiny trout in a creek and swam and it was quiet.

now we are back. and i am thinking, why live in the city if you are not devoted to social justice, or improving urban ecology, or the arts. am i to be inspired by the city, or depressed by it?is it time to write my novel? today we went to the park and miles played soccer with a little boy who just moved from nicaragua. swam in martin luther king pool. and tonight i met my starr king mom friends for an awesome 24th st night of wine, whiskey, pate and talk, talk talk. we all flirted with the curly haired 43 year old waitress with braces. school will start soon.

my baby starting kindergarten.

so had some serious where should we live thoughts this weekend. should we live where it is calm and peaceful? quiet with no garbage on the ground, wine at the park and friendly faces? inverness and point reyes were so natural with trees and sky and beach all around. today we saw a woman lying on her side outside walgreens in handcuffs. was she an escaped murderer? miles wanted to know. i had no answer, only a clear image of her vulnerable back, lying on the sidewalk, a man slipping a hand into her back pocket, hopefully to find her identity and help her. a fire truck, police car and ambulance were soon on the scene, so i could tell the kids she was taken care of.

anyway, we are back. thanks to my starr king mom friends for this buzzed night. back in the city for now, with lots of plans for getaways to places where we are closer to the land, the plants, the animals, where the population is not so dense and intense. i need it, i want it, this time with nature.

love you guys,

j