Friday evening the family was all sitting around the dining room table eating sorbet after a family walk around the harbor.  David, pretty much out of nowhere (which is not so unusual) asks, “So how does the egg get from the man’s mouth into the woman’s tummy to make a baby?”

Jim asked, “Where did you learn about eggs?”

David shrugged his shoulders.  I think I actually explained rudimentary reproduction to them over a year ago when they were homeschooled.  However, I never detailed the sperm’s journey to the egg.  I couldn’t believe he remembered but he also seemed a little young for playground reproductive talk, but you never know.

I said, “That’s actually not all that inaccurate, David.”

“But the egg doesn’t come out of the man’s mouth,” said Jim.

Then,  light seem to glow from somewhere deep inside of David.  He looked at me with that oh so clever twinkle in his eye, “Does it come from,” (dramatic pause) “this spot?” He said, indicating his penis.

Never one to shy away from the truth of reproduction, I replied, “Yes, David, that is where it comes from.”

David, the light inside him now exploding into unbounded joy said, “That is so AWESOME!!!”

“But wait, how does the egg get from there into the woman’s mouth to make the baby?”

“We’ll talk about that later, David,” said Jim.

In a world, where potty humor seems to dominate the kids flick world, it’s nice to have Pixar.  Yesterday we went to see Pixar’s latest, Up.  Much has been written about this movie so I don’t really feel the need to review it here except to say, go see the movie and make sure you bring some tissues with you.

I am most grateful for the Pixar studios attitude towards film making.  It doesn’t seem as though they are out to make blockbuster kid flicks, even though I know that is probably the ultimate goal of certain movie ventures.  Their goal, it seems to me, is to tell a good story.  And they do, again and again.

The the thing about a good story is that it appeals to everyone.  You don’t even need a lot of dialogue a la Wall-E, which my David loves.  The cartoon preview before Up has no dialogue but it’s still a good story and quite humorous.  A good story has a definitive beginning, middle and end as opposed to a long string of potty humor gags and chases.  And these stories do appeal to children.  Children don’t have to be the crass little beings it seems that a lot of kid flick companies seem to see them as.  No, maybe they won’t understand the bigger themes in certain movies, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t  be given a good story.  Ana and David could, 5 years from now watch the Up again and derive meaning greater than the sum of the parts of the story.  And that’s the other part of good story telling, each time you re-visit the story, you find something different, something else to take to heart.

As a parent, it was nice to actually be able to ask a question last night about the movie, “What did you learn from Up?”  Ana and David weren’t up to that kind of discussion, of course.  But Jim and I had a brief conversation about what we could take a way from the movie.  Hopefully, hopefully, they will learn not to take everything, including movies, at face value. 

I’m not sure I could have such a discussion about a Madagascar movie.

Thank you Pixar!!

The kids went with me yesterday when I went up to Towson to have my TB test checked.  This was a routine, “working in a hospital” thing, but I’ve had several close calls with *almost* positive readings and was even sent for a chest x-ray, but I ended up being preggo with Ana at the time, so obviously no x-ray was performed.  I’d wager a million dollars I was exposed either during my time in Appalachia or when I worked in the inner city.  But, at this point, I have no symptoms.  So maybe I’m just allergic to the test?

Anyway…as we got out of the car, David looked at the trash on the ground and said, “I wish everyone in the world was Orthodox so they would take care of the earth.”  I’m not exactly sure how he came to arrive at “being Orthodox” = “taking care of the earth” but I was glad that he noticed the trash on the ground and was somewhat disgusted with it.  We, have, on many occasions, emphasized that the earth is not *ours* but is simply on loan from God and that we need to take care of it.  I think we have even tied this together with how our personal sins don’t just hurt us…they can affect people on the other side of the world.  Perhaps David’s brain is actually maturing to the point where he can synthesize old ideas and come up with something sort of novel.  Now, that’s cool!

Later in the day, Ana asked about the rice we were having for dinner: “What is it?”  I replied, “It’s a grain, kind of like wheat.”  Her Dad told her that many people in the world *only* have rice to eat because it is all they can afford.  After dinner, I happened to be perusing an issue of National Geographic which had a picture of third world hands separating good rice seed from bad.  Ana looked over my shoulder and asked what I was looking at.  All of this led to an explanation of how ultimately, all life on earth goes back to dirt, water, sunshine and air. That’s what the seeds need to grow and we eat what the seed produces or something that has itself eaten what the seed produces.  “So, you see why it’s important to take care of these things…to *not* throw trash on the ground and dirty up the earth.”  Ana nodded at me.  I don’t know if she entirely gets it because these concepts are rather big, but she is starting to ask me more mature questions and I don’t have the answers to some of them.

I’m glad the kids are looking around and realizing, at least on small levels, that they aren’t the center of the universe.

“Birds of God, joyful birds, you, too, must forgive me, because I have also sinned before you.”  None of us could understand it then, but he was weeping with joy:  “Yes,” he said, “there was so much of God’s glory around me:  birds, trees, meadows, sky, and I alone lived in shame, I alone dishonored everything, and did not notice the beauty and glory of it all.”  “You take too many sins upon yourself,” mother used to weep.  “Dear mother, my joy, I am weeping from gladness, not from grief; I want to be guilty before them, only I cannot explain it to you, for I do not even know how to love them.  Let me be sinful before everyone, but so that everyone will forgive me, and that is paradise.  Am I not in paradise now?”  Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov:  Father Zossima is relating a story about his brother and the truths he came to realize on his deathbed.

Yesterday, I took the kids to Chick-fil-a in order to redeem free kid’s meal coupons they had received for making the honor roll at school.  We parked ourselves at a booth right by the indoor play area that most of the places sport.  I knew Ana and David would want to play after eating and I wanted to be able to watch them without having to actually be in the kid’s area.  It can get a little Lord of the Fly-esque in there and it is not usually an experience I enjoy.

I was drawn to the family sitting in the booth in front of us where a grandmother, mom and tiny baby were eating lunch.  It was the grandmother who first caught my attention.  She was wearing what my grandmother would’ve called a “duster,” a kind of “house dress,” loose fitting with snaps up the front.  She had snow white hair, curly like mine but the curls were brushed out, longish and pulled up in pony tail.  The front of her hair was cut into bangs and kind of floated above her head like a cloud.  She had fair skin and her forehead was high, also like mine with a few horizontal lines.  She reminded me of the women I met during my time in Appalachia and, to me, she had a rare, raw beauty.

I tried several times to catch her voice to see if I would hear that beautiful Appalachian lilt in her speech, but never quite heard enough to know for sure.  Her daughter, who looked something like her mom, with black sleek hair, was quite deferential to her mother.  At one point, the daughter placed the baby (and revealed it’s sex by the pink clothing) in the grandmother’s arms while she went off to rinse out the baby bottle and refill her mom’s drink.  Grandmother and granddaugther sat together, the little one exploring the world with new eyes, the older clinging just so to the younger and brushing her older cheek against what I knew was the softest sweetest thing in the world to her at that moment.

Grandmother began to sing in a soft voice to her granddaughter, and I couldn’t help it.  I cried. Sacred moments can happen just about anywhere, if we just keep our eyes open…

They really do hurt, and it’s kind of annoying.  Right after David was born, I went through a period when my hurt when I got up in the morning.  My dear brother in law gave me a gift certificate for the Birkenstock store and I bought a pair and they stopped hurting.  But, all good things must come to an end….the shoes wore out and I stopped wearing them.  For a few years, I was fine.  But now, the feet hurt again and not just in the morning, although that’s when it’s worst.  It sort of lingers all day long in my, mostly in my heels,  and it is annoying…like the sound of endless nails scratching on an unending chalkboard, except it’s my feet….hurting. 

The other morning I nearly cried when I stepped out of bed.  I think they reason the hurt so badly that morning was because I had spent the previous afternoon at the 6th grade dance at school, mostly on my feet. A dance, at school, you ask?  Allow me to explain…the 7th graders went to the DC zoo, the 8th graders went to New York City so the 6th graders got to have a dance.  Still doesn’t make sense?  Well, not to me either, but I guess I just don’t have that administrative gene…

I decided to go with my favorite class, the self contained special ed classroom.  These kids are the light of my world, honestly, mostly because they let an approaching middle age nerdy lady hang out with them.  And they like me.  They even danced with me.  We took turns twirling each other.  Unfortunately, the music didn’t really lend itself to traditional ballroom twirling.  And here’s another tale of aging.  I didn’t know *any* of the music.  Not one song.  Now, I have to say that all of the music was from the urban genre, which is not one that I follow, well, ever.  But in my younger days I did at least no *some* songs with an urban beat.  The other day, I knew none of them.  And the music was too loud.  There you go…I’m definitely beginning to get crotchety around the edges.

Now, I did get to hear one song that was really cool, the “Cha, Cha Slide.”  Apparently, it has been around for a while and even has a recently released “volume two,” but of course, being a little crotchety around the edges I had never heard of it.  But I wasn’t too crotchety to enjoy listening to it and wish that I had worn different shoes so I could dance a little more vigorously with the kids.  The speech therapist in me thought, “what a great song for enhancing receptive language skills.”  I couldn’t help thinking it.

So, after all that time on my feet, they hurt pretty badly the next morning.  Enough for me to look up Danskos on Zappos.com, send the link to my husband and ask which of the choices were the least old ladyish looking.  Once I start my new job, (with full benefits, Yay!  No more $1200 a month COBRA payments) I will find a podiatrist and figure out exactly what this is.  I’ve heard terrible stories about bone spurs. 

There I go again…talking about my aches and pains.  *sigh*  Well, as my dad always said:  getting older is better than the alternative.

Over, (but not out)

Ian left a message on the last post asking if I’m OK.  I am quite OK, just very busy finishing up the year.  Special Education carries with it a lot of paperwork, and since I can’t let myself halfway do anything, I like to take the time to make sure it’s finished correctly so they next person who comes along won’t inherit a mess (as I have on many occasions).  I am also dealing with the emotional side of saying goodbye to students and staff I have worked with over this last year.  Although I have grown a bit in my ability to maintain a little distance between myself and the students I work with, I still find myself growing very fond of them.  It is also always a pleasure to work with like minded individuals who work had to take care of these kids and give them the best possible start in life.  It is hard to think about not working with them in the future.

So, that’s what’s up at the moment.  Thursday is my last day, and then I’m on to new adventures.  Pray for me.  I’m about to get stretched in multitudinous ways!!

…is gold.

Forgive me, dear readers, for engaging in a bit of cheese. My family, after having been deserters for the last 6 seasons, became entangled in the American Idol web this season. Jim, happened to watch the audition of one of the contestants, then the unknown, Adam Lambert. His comment to me was something to the effect of, “That guy can really sing.”

I brushed it off a bit, thinking, American Idol, come on! And then, I watched him sing…and…dude could really sing! Adam is, to my mind at least, an amazing talent. The whole family was sucked into to the vortex that is AI and watched faithfully (the kids via DVR) every week.

However, Adam seemed to be more than just a great voice. For starters, it was apparent from the interviews and his reactions at comments from the judges, that Adam was a nice guy and truly surprised by and grateful for the praise he received. And secondly, one of his comments illustrated his long road from obscurity to stardom: This is to all the kids out there who think that they’re weird, people make fun of them and they feel that they’re different and they’re outcast. … You can do something with your life.  One can’t help but wonder what Adam’s formative years might have been.

As someone who has always felt herself to be a bit of an outsider, it’s hard not to want to cheer for the guy. Let’s face it, most of us who felt marginalized, remain so, peeking out at the rest of the world from the safe side of the red line. If you are one of those people, you might identify with the loneliness and the fear of showing your true colors. It’s good to see someone who was bold enough to step over the line, and shine.

Shine on!