Food, Glorious Food? (Recipe Included!)

(A version of this post first appeared on Mothering.com at http://www.mothering.com/community/a/food-glorious-food-plus-marble-loaf-recipe)

I finally started trying to feed my oldest son, Parker, solid food after waiting and waiting in vain for him to show the slightest interest in consuming anything other than breast milk. I had had visions of my darling little boy happily gobbling up spoonful after spoonful of healthy, lovingly prepared homemade baby food, but the reality couldn't have been more different. Every time I extended my arm to proffer a pea-size amount of smashed banana or puréed yams or "super porridge," my son's brow would furrow, his lips would purse and his face would turn away. I tried feeding him in the morning, I tried feeding him in the afternoon and I tried feeding him in the evening. It didn't matter. He unfailingly turned up his nose at solid food, often with a look of utter disgust on his face, as if he were doing his best impression of Anthony Bourdain being served undercooked Kraft macaroni and cheese.

Eventually, every so often, my son would open his lips instead of purse them and allow me to spoon in some baby food. By that point, I'd given up on making my own; too many attempts at feeding him had ended in painstakingly prepared purées washed down the drain. But then the supermercado that supplied the island we were living on with groceries ran out of plain baby food. For weeks on end, there was a huge empty space on the shelf next to the meat-added "entrée"-style and sugar-added "dessert"-style jars of baby food. So everyday I mashed up some local avocado, stirred in some nutritional yeast, smiled big and offered the concoction to my son. There wasn't much else to make for him. A cornucopia of fresh produce the island was not. A week or so after I was finally able to once again buy some jars of regular old baby food (no meat or sugar added!), Parker astonished me by eating with actual gusto. His little mouth kept opening and accepting spoonful after spoonful. "At last!" I thought to myself. When he seemed sated, I pulled out the bottle of multivitamin drops the pediatrician had urged me to give him. I'd yet to even open the bottle; feeding him had been such an uphill battle I hadn't wanted to risk the added challenge of vitamin drops. Parker drank the drops down, paused a moment and then threw up his entire meal. By the time I'd cleaned up all the bits of regurgitated baby food, we were both exhausted and ready for bed. I threw away the rest of the bottle of multivitamin drops, figuring the nutrients in my breast milk were fortifying enough.

A week or two later, I needed to do some important errands so my husband, a chef, took our son with him to work. "I don't know why you keep saying he doesn't like to eat!" my husband exclaimed when I arrived to pick Parker up. There sat our son, in a high chair in a corner of the restaurant's kitchen, little legs happily swinging as he ate savory morsels of the three-potato hash his dad had prepared for the restaurant's dinner menu. I stammered, "B-b-but that has butter in it! And, Mike, it has salt! SALT!" My husband smiled and said, "Well, yeah. That's why he likes it." Then, with a smirk and a "Watch this, Megs" Mike handed our son a piece of the P'tit Basque cheese he'd been slicing. Parker's legs went into high gear and he practically levitated off his seat as he nibbled on the fancy French sheep's milk cheese. I didn't know whether to scold Mike for giving our baby boy decidedly non-baby food or to jump for joy that Parker was actually eating in earnest. I did know that the health nut in me was totally freaking out about all that salt and animal fat corrupting my son's taste buds.

I'm a second generation health nut. As a kid, I never got to eat sugar cereal and I thought carob was chocolate until I was about eight. My mom has only recently started using salt--but only pink salt--and has always, as far back as I can remember, swallowed down a mysterious hodgepodge of vitamins and supplements every morning. Once I flew the coop and could do my own grocery shopping, I unconsciously gravitated to the health food stores. By the time my oldest son was born, I'd been eating mostly vegan for years. For me, not eating animals and only very occasionally eating animal products is about choosing to live holistically, with minimal impact upon our planet. It's a lifestyle choice. I guess I forgot, though, that it really is a choice. I'd been attached--pretty much literally--to my son from the moment he'd been born. I breastfed him and co-slept with him and took him with me almost everywhere I went. How easy it is to forget that your child has a mind of his own when you're deep in the attachment parenting trenches. When it came time for Parker to begin eating solid food, I expected him to become a happy, health nut-y mostly vegan just like his mom. Watching him chow down on salty, buttery potatoes and über-rich cheese that afternoon was my first big reminder that he was his own (albeit very little) person, patently capable of making his own choices even at less than one year old. It wasn't that he didn't want to eat solid food; he just didn't want to eat unseasoned vegan mush.

After that day, I didn't just throw in the towel and start serving my son bacon, but I did realize that I needed to begin "thinking outside the jar" if I wanted him to eat nutritious, earth-friendly food. Though he's now six and his days of being fed smashed vegetables are far behind him, it is still a constant challenge finding food both that is good for him and that he'll actually eat. I know I'm not the only parent struggling with the what's-for-dinner dilemma. Whole books have been written about sneaking vegetables into kid-friendly food (an endeavor which has never been successful for me--the so-called hidden vegetables are always too detectable for my kid). In this new "listen to your body" era, with the clean your plate club and starving children in Africa guilt trips thankfully relegated to the compost bin, continuing to allow your child a fair amount of autonomy over what he eats can be trying when he hasn't eaten anything green in days. I just keep trying new foods, new recipes, even new presentations (Look! It's shaped like a TIE fighter!) and sometimes persistence pays off. My son ate pounds and pounds of fresh English peas this summer, for which I owe the local farmers market many thanks. And when we're out and about, I allow him to eat omnivorously. I don't want meat to become the forbidden fruit (so to speak!). My son definitely likes certain non-veg foods (salami, chicken tacos, the occasional hamburger). I've been talking with him for years about why I eat the way I do. He always shrugs and says, "Yeah, but I like meat." That's OK. It took me about thirty years to realize my parents were right about A LOT of things. Hopefully one day, Parker will realize I was right about not eating animals. In the mean time, I mentally take note of what non-veg foods he likes and then try to rework them, vegan- (or at least vegetarian-) style, at home. Usually it helps if I don't tell him they're my own healthier, more ecological version.

Starbucks Marble Loaf Cake, Vegan-Style

Note:

My mom and stepdad are Starbucks fanatics. (They even use the Starbucks iPhone app! I had no idea there was an app for that.) My stepdad in particular likes to treat his grandchildren to Starbucks goodies. I was OK with Parker enjoying the occasional slice of pumpkin bread but ever since Starbucks farmed their pastries out to La Boulange, my son has been eschewing pumpkin bread in favor of the crazy decadent mini marble loaf cake. I figured it was time for a healthier home version.

Adapted from Ms. Martha Stewart

http://www.marthastewart.com/339716/marble-cake

YIELD

Makes one 9-by-5-inch loaf

INGREDIENTS

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/4 cup vegan margarine (e.g., Earth Balance)

1 cup coconut palm sugar

1 tablespoon flaxseed meal

2 tablespoons egg replacer (e.g., Bob's Red Mill)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

I tablespoon apple cider vinegar

2/3 cup non-dairy milk

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon Dutch-process cocoa powder

1/4 cup mini vegan chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS

STEP 1

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan with coconut oil; set aside.

STEP 2

Make your "eggs" and "buttermilk": in small bowl, mix flaxseed meal with three tablespoons warm water; in another small bowl, mix egg replacer with six tablespoons warm water; in a liquid measuring cup, add ACV to non-dairy milk; set all aside.

STEP 3

Whisk together the cake flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

STEP 4

In the bowl of an electric mixer* fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the coconut oil, margarine and sugar until light and fluffy, about five minutes. Add flaxseed meal and water mixture, then egg replacer and water mixture, beating until combined after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Mix in vanilla. Add flour mixture in two batches, alternating with the non-dairy milk and beginning and ending with the flour. Set aside 1/3 of the batter.

STEP 5

In a bowl, mix cocoa and 1/4 cup plus two tablespoons boiling water with a rubber spatula until smooth. Add the cocoa mixture to the reserved cake batter; stir until well combined.

STEP 6

Stir chocolate chips into vanilla cake batter.

STEP 7

Spoon batters into the prepared pan in two layers, alternating spoonfuls of vanilla and chocolate to simulate a checkerboard. To create marbling, run a table knife (or wooden skewer) through the batters in a swirling motion.

STEP 8

Bake, rotating the pan halfway through, until a cake tester comes out clean, 50 to 60 minutes. Transfer pan to a rack to cool ten minutes. Turn out cake from pan and cool completely on the rack. Cake can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature up to three days.

* I don't own an electric mixer so I just cut the oil and margarine into the sugar using two table knives, then used a whisk to make the mixture nice and fluffy.

Roll with It

We wheeled our bikes out of the garage yesterday afternoon, happily looking forward to riding through the bright, warm summer afternoon to our local fro yo store. My littlest (21 months) was buckled in the Burley trailer, already flipping through one of the lift-the-flap board books I keep in there, and my oldest (6) was fast on his way to the street corner. He waited for me there while I closed the garage door, strapped my helmet on and pedaled down the block to catch up with him. This was only our second bike ride since summer began. Parker, my oldest, had broken his arm at the beginning of the summer; his cast had been off for a couple weeks but he'd only felt ready to begin biking again the day before. It had made my heart so happy to see him speeding along, a huge grin on his face, shouting, "See you later, alligator!" as he raced ahead of me. That sense of glee was still with us yesterday, at long last biking together again along the streets of our neighborhood.

Immediately, though, I could tell something was wrong. Whereas he'd been hard to keep up with the day before, yesterday he pedaled slowly, at times laboriously. We'd both woken up with a bit of a cold so I figured he just wasn't feeling quite up to snuff. It was hot, he hadn't eaten much lunch, we were pedaling sort of uphill and definitely into the wind; he'll get going once we turned the corner up ahead, into the shade, out of the wind, I told myself. But he continued to go very slowly. A car came up behind us so I pulled back to fall in line behind Parker. It was then I noticed that he was holding his supposedly mended arm funny, keeping it up at a weird angle. A block later, we'd stopped biking, our plans to get frozen yogurt abandoned. I stood there on the side of the road, trying to decide what to do. Parker kept avowing that his arm didn't hurt but I could see a distinct bulge where he'd broken it and he screamed when I tried to touch it. It was a Friday afternoon: what were the chances I'd be able to get him in to see either his pediatrician or his orthopedist before the end of the work day? Was it worth trying to call either one while we stood there in the hot sunshine in front of a strange house? Deciding not, I locked Parker's bike to a street sign, helped him into the Burley (which his little brother was none too pleased about) and biked home. "Mommy, PLEASE try to e-void the big bumps!" Parker called after I'd mindlessly ridden over a manhole cover.

Fifteen minutes later, we were back in the ER, exactly seven weeks after the initial break. We recognized several of the staff and they in turn recognized us. I highly recommend the Friday afternoon shift at Sequoia Hospital. They are cheerful, kind and patient. I figure pretty soon I'll be able to start writing Yelp reviews of the local ERs. Eighteen months ago, my ER experience was effectively nil. Yesterday's visit was my fifth since December of 2011. After my youngest was born, friends and family started making comments about life with two boys. "Oh, you're in for a handful!" "Watch out, mama! I hope you're ready for life to get crazy!" I'd just smile and give them a little half-hearted chuckle. The feminist in me felt affronted by these remarks. I have two sisters. Growing up, we played sports and climbed trees and jumped off furniture and did flips off the monkey bars; shy, retiring flowers we were not. Yes, little boys can be rambunctious but so can little girls. Besides, life had already gotten crazy. My husband had died while I was five months pregnant with my second child, while my first child and I were en route to visit family in California, at which point we'd just stayed with my family in California, leaving our life and friends in the Caribbean behind. How much "crazier" could life get? 

Twenty-one months into life with two boys, I say that my sense of feminist outrage over the "Oho, two boys! Hunker down!" comments was justified. Parenting little kids can get absolutely nuts at times but parenting little boys, as far as I can tell, doesn't get any more nuts than parenting little girls. All small children can be willful, energetic and high maintenance (to name a few). Tending to your offspring, whether one child or five, all boys or all girls, is tough work--the best kind of work, but tough work nonetheless. As to the "How much crazier can life get?" question, well, that's a little trickier to answer. Yes, we've been to the ER five times in eighteen months. We've moved three times since my husband died. My oldest went from homeschool to a Montessori preschool to a non-Montessori elementary school. My youngest had hernia surgery. Et cetera. Life has been crazy. Crazier, though? Who's to say. How do you quantify crazy?

I spent most of my adolescence and young adulthood either trying to avoid life's inherent craziness or trying to control it. It made for misery. Even after I'd learned to let go a little, after I'd married and become a mom, I still structured my days to ensure as much predictability as possible. I needed routine, probably even more so than my child did. If my husband wanted to sleep in--and not wake up early enough to watch our son so I could take a long walk before he left for work--I'd freak out. And usually for good reason: those days I did not start off with a walk often unfolded awfully, with me short-tempered and even more avoidant than normal. I had friends who'd watch one another's kids at the drop of a hat. I couldn't wrap my head around that. What? Suddenly agree to take care of two more children?!? In addition to your own?! But that would disrupt your entire day! I lived high on a hillside on a tiny island in the middle of the Caribbean, far away from my family and the hustle and bustle of the modern world. I lived in a self-made cocoon of schedules and routine. I felt safe, maybe even content. And then my husband died.

It was in my grief support group, about three months after Mike passed, that I heard the words that would finally, irrevocably change my perspective on life. It was my turn to speak and I was describing how I'd been feeling sad, yes, but also extremely edgy. I complained about how I couldn't find even a fleeting sense of peace, and how frustrating that was since my life before Mike died had been purposefully structured around cultivating calmness. My grief counselor looked at me for a moment, with nary the compassion and understanding I'd been righteously expecting. She took a breath and then responded, speaking slowly and carefully. She said that Life--capital L--isn't calm or peaceful. We have to find peace within ourselves, even in the midst of chaos, even in the midst of craziness. She held my gaze for an instant and then moved on. I sat there, befuddled. I didn't want to accept what she'd said but her words must have resonated somewhere inside me because I kept mulling them over for days afterward. Then I happened upon this quotation: "Peace is not the absence of chaos or conflict, but rather finding yourself in the midst of that chaos and remaining calm in your heart." I read those words simultaneously feeling a sense of illumination and a sense of resignation. OK, I get it. I get it. Time to stop standing around in the concession area; time to climb aboard the roller coaster called Life, sit back and experience the ride.

My life today is crazy. ER trips and moving house and new schools, yes, but also the less dramatic kind of crazy: trying to get breakfast made and laundry folded and teeth brushed; trying to nourish our bodies with healthful food, trying to cook food that will actually be eaten; trying to get us where we need be, looking at least somewhat presentable; trying to keep both boys entertained while encouraging sharing and peaceful conflict resolution; trying to respond to emails and phone calls; trying to keep the vegetables in my garden growing. My day-to-day life is probably a lot like any other mom's. Pretty much the only predictable parts of the day are naptime and bedtime, and even those sometimes feel like moving targets; no more long morning walks for me, no more carefully cultivated interludes of calm throughout the day. Life with two small boys is crazy, but it's not their fault. It's Life, and I'm grateful for it in all its complex, chaotic messiness.

The x-rays at the ER yesterday confirmed that my son's arm bones had broken again in the same spot. He burst into tears when the physician's assistant told him. "Not another cast!" I hugged and consoled him. Then a nurse brought in two big teddy bears, one for Parker and one for his brother. The tears quickly dried while the boys happily played with their new bears. Up and down and around the roller coaster we go.

A version of this blog post appeared on mothering.com at http://www.mothering.com/community/a/roll-with-it

Sportsmanlike Conduct

Parker had his first T-ball game yesterday. He's been intense about T-ball; seriously excited, treating it with a gravity that he hasn't shown any other activity. I've had my heart in my throat these past several weeks as we've met his coaches, tried on his uniform and cleats and attended his first practices. He just seems to care so very much. I think that, for Parker, there's an expectation about T-ball; that this is what bigger boys do. 

"You know, you might not get the jersey number you want, Bub," I tentatively told him as we headed to Opening Day. "This is just your first ever practice, so it's OK if you're not super great at T-ball right away," I said with a smile and a kiss right before he ran off in full uniform to join his team on a windy Wednesday evening. My eyes misted over as I watched him "grab a knee" out on the infield and gaze up attentively at his coach at that first practice. It was one of those "Sunrise Sunset" moments. (Of course, he's still mostly little boy--not even in kindergarten yet--and little-boy-ness is supremely unsuppressable. He gaily skipped back and forth from the infield to the outfield between drills.)

For me, one of the most challenging parts about parenting is tempering my tendency to overprotect. It is so tough to sit on the sidelines and watch your sweet little guy enthusiastically shout, "Parker is the fastest runner!" knowing that he will learn in short shrift that he is not actually the fastest player on the field; or the best thrower or the best catcher or the best batter, for that matter. Not a whole lot tended to challenge Parker's sense of self when he was a homeschooled kid with no siblings living on a tiny island. Now we live in a sprawling metropolis; now he has a baby brother; now he goes to preschool; now he regularly interacts with older children (his cousin, my dad's 10 year old and 6 year old, the boys in our apartment building); now he plays team sports. He's getting the message, out loud and tacitly, that he's just a little guy in a big world with a lot to learn about a lot of things. I think he feels like he's shimmying up the totem pole a bit by donning his T-ball uniform, like he's more in league, so to speak, with the bigger boys.

Parker's first practices went well--nothing untoward happened to quell his fever pitch--and so he suited up for yesterday's game with gusto. Sure enough, though, about halfway through the game, the spring went out of Parker's step. He trudged toward me to say, "Mommy, this game is taking too long. I'm ready to go now." His eyes were red and his chin quivered. I asked him if anything had happened. He was adamant that he was just tired. "The practices are much shorter than this, Mommy." He didn't believe me when I told him that the reverse was true.

What to do, when your child wants to throw in the towel? How hard do you push him to "get back on the horse?" Thoughts bounced around in my brain: he'd slept plenty the night before so he can't be too tired; maybe he didn't eat enough lunch; maybe his uniform is too thin for this insanely cold wind; maybe I took too many photos, thereby putting too much pressure on this first game; maybe I should let him quit for today; if don't make him finish the game, will he learn that it's OK to give up? shouldn't I encourage him to persevere? but will he think that my love is conditional if I force him back out onto the field? aack, he's crying! what do I do? Meanwhile, Parker was sitting dejectedly on the dugout bench, Logan (my newborn) was snotty, tired and screaming on my chest in the Moby wrap, the other parents were covertly taking in the whole scene, and the same thought kept repeating itself, overriding all the others: "Maybe Parker just misses his dad."

Parker ended up playing out the game with aid of a Z-bar and the promise of a hot chocolate. I noticed that the other team's first baseman liked to shout, "You're out! I got you out!" at Parker each time he eventually trotted up to first base after hitting the ball. (I say "eventually" because Parker, like most other T-ballers, seems to have a hard time remembering to actually drop the bat and run to first base--and tag the base!--once he's hit the ball, thereby giving the other team ample time to field the ball. Aren't all Americans born instinctually knowing how to play our national pastime? Apparently not.) There are no outs in T-ball but that doesn't stop some competitively minded kids from keeping track of when they make an out; I'm sure those same kids were counting the runs scored, too. I again asked Parker, after the game, if anything had happened to upset him during the game. He mentioned that first baseman, those taunting words. It's so hard, as a parent, to watch your child's feelings get bruised, even when you know it's all part of the maturing process. That mother hen instinct to swoop your chicks up under your wings and keep them there bundled next to your heart forever is so strong. I told Parker that the only person he really needs to listen to on the T-ball field is his coach. He looked at me, a little deflated, and replied, "Can we go to the park after we get my hot chocolate?"

Carrying his gear to the game.

Listening to the coach, pre-game.

Parker's fan club. 

Watching the action from the dugout.

 

Dec, Papa Bo and Logan.

On deck. 

First at bat.

A hit!

Trotting up to first base.

 

Snotty Logan asks, "Can we go home now?"

On second base.

Playing second base.

Moonstruck

Man, I am LOVING homeschooling a four-year-old! No offense to my son, who only recently graduated from the Tyrannical Threes (as I so affectionately called them), but I am so very thankful that his little self has now orbited the sun four entire times. Four definitely equals fun. There was a troubling time last summer when the strength of my desire to homeschool my son began to ebb. Day after day after day of pouring rice and stringing beads and dusting surfaces had dulled my enthusiasm. I knew the practical life activities my son was practicing were providing him with a strong sense of self-sufficiency (as well as introducing him to the structure and routine of our homeschool). I knew also that preschoolers crave repetition; that they acquire new skills by performing routine tasks ad nauseum. I knew all this and still I could not help feeling mind-numbingly bored during our homeschool sessions. Well, it's a new dawn, it's a new day and I'm feeling good. All of a sudden (sort of), my son is no longer a short-attention-span-possessing, emotionally-unstable, instant-gratification-seeking toddler. All of sudden (sort of), he is a little boy, curious about the world, passionate about animals and space (and also vehicles, of course), willing to concentrate, able to stay calm (mostly), capable of discussing various cool and awe-inspiring topics with me. Seriously: new dawn, new day.


So we've been having an absolute ball in our homeschool (and outside of it as well). We've been learning about animals--having these great, fun talks about myriad species (a lot of said talks edifying not only to my son but also to me). We've been spelling words using the movable alphabet. We've been having fun with geometry with the Magna-Tiles I wrote about in my last post. And we've been discussing space a lot. Parker is fascinated by space right now. He loves learning about the planets; he loves creating rockets and flying them to the moon; he's half-terrified, half-enthralled by the fact that meteors exist. It warms my heart, seeing my son so in love with learning. All I want to do is foster that love, to nurture it and help it grow. In light of that, I recently visited the National Geographic Store's website, expecting to only browse around, possibly purchase one or two educational books about the solar system or animals. (Brief aside: I read a while back that boys--even little boys--usually prefer to read nonfiction; that storybooks don't do it for them as much as informative, fact-packed texts. At the time, I thought to myself, "Yeah, right. Why do people insist on stereotyping our children based on so-called gender-based characteristics?" About a nanosecond after I thought that, Parker started pulling out only his nonfiction books at story time, and continues to do so. I, being female, would love to read scads of magical storybooks with my child; Parker prefers his Usborne flap books.) Anyway, it's a good thing I can comfort myself with the nonprofit mission of the National Geographic Society, because I spent a chunk of change buying books from their online store. There were just so many cool kids' books! (And I could seriously use a break from reading Parker's flap books.) Our new books arrived last week, and we've been reading Moon from the "Jump into Science" series repeatedly. It's a neat little book, with cute illustrations and fun facts about the moon. The author clearly explains why the moon goes through phases, why it looks like it's the same size as the sun (but is really not), that the moon orbits the earth, how the craters on the moon are created and that the moon reflects the sun's light (rather than creating light of its own).


I really like National Geographic Kids' "Jump into Science" series; each book has a "bonus" experiment at the end. Moon's experiment is "Making Craters." You pour about an inch of flour into a cake pan, then find five rocks of various sizes. After explaining to your child that the flour is the moon and the rocks are meteors, you have the child drop the rocks into the flour from about two feet above the pan. (Parker REALLY liked exclaiming, "Here comes a meteor!" every time he dropped a rock.) Then you talk about what happened; how the flour flew out of the way when a rock hit it, creating a crater; how big rocks made big craters and little rocks made little craters. In the book, the author explains that the earth's air protects us from most meteors by causing them to burn up, so I made sure to remind Parker of that fact while he was making meteors crash onto the "airless" moon. Of course, Parker wanted to repeat this experiment over and over and over, which was fine. It wasn't super fun cleaning up the spilled "moon dust," but I'm fine sacrificing a little elbow grease for the sake of science.


Postscript: The next day in school, we did another moon experiment. We brought a small mirror and a flashlight into "outer space" (the darkest room in the house, Parker's bedroom). I held the mirror while standing about five feet from Parker, with the flashlight propped on a table in a corner of the room. First, with the flashlight turned off, I asked Parker if he could see the "moon" (aka the mirror). The I turned on the flashlight, pointed it away from the mirror and again asked Parker if he could see the moon. Then I moved the mirror so that the flashlight shone on it and the light reflected onto Parker. He said, "I see it! And it's bright!" I explained that the flashlight was the sun, the mirror was the moon and he was the earth. Fun stuff.

First of many craters.

"Here comes a meteor!"

Collecting moon dust and meteors.

Sifting the moon dust from the meteors so that he could repeat the experiment.

Spoils of Birthdays

Though I have been lax in my blogging, my son and have been hard at work in our homeschool, writing letters in salt, spelling words using our movable alphabet, studying the solar system and learning about tropical animals (like manatees) and seabirds (like gannets and turnstones). In addition to all this, before my very eyes, my son has transformed into Super Geometry Boy, fiendishly building two- and three-dimensional shapes out of the Magna-Tiles he received for his birthday. (Thank you, K, Dad, Dec and Keira!) My husband, a geometry nut himself (Super Geometry Dad?), has wholeheartedly encouraged our son's newest passion, teaching Parker about isosceles and equilateral triangles and even building whimsical structures out of the Magna-Tiles all by himself, late at night when Parker and I are both asleep. We've talked about how two isosceles triangles form a square, how six squares form a cube, how six equilateral triangles form a hexagon and how it's possible to build three-sided and four-sided pyramids. Parker is so jazzed about his ability to make squares out of triangles that he has literally spent hours building cubes out of isosceles triangles (first making six squares, then putting them together to form a cube). I like the Magna-Tiles because they present Parker with just the right amount of a challenge: they're not super easy to assemble, but they're also not frustratingly hard. He has to concentrate and use both his motor control skills and geometry knowledge to build his structures. It's super fun to see him so engrossed.

Of course, the structures that Parker builds using the Magna-Tiles almost always have to possess a final cause. He's built garages for his cars, houses, space shuttles, and space objects (in addition to other unrecognizable-by-me stuff). Here are some photos.

Dual-purpose structure: garage and helipad.

Mommy pyramid and baby pyramid.

Pyramid playpen? Pyramid in jail?

The tallest spaceship in the world.

OK, who's seen Wallace & Gromit's A Grand Day Out? Here is the robot skier exiting the space shuttle. (Parker built a hexagon to serve as the moon.)

Going Mobile

I used to long for a room of my own. You know, like Ms. Woolf wrote about, almost one hundred years ago. Lately, I've realized that that dream is totally unattainable (for the foreseeable future, at least). Now, I'd really just settle for a desk of my own. Ooh, no! For a secretary! A secretary of my own! And I'm not talking about a human assistant. No, I'm talking about a super functional piece of furniture in which I could store sundry supplies; one that would boost my productivity and help me stay organized. My mom has a beautiful old secretary--she's had it since I can remember--the nooks and crannies of which I used to love to explore as a small child. A secretary would be perfect for me! Its footprint is small, but its storage capacity is well nigh boundless. And I could use it as a desk! A desk! Oh, what I would give to own a desk again...

I've been fantasizing about office furniture (never mind an actual office!) of late because it's gets a little difficult at times to prepare our homeschool materials sitting on the floor or on our couch. And I've hollowed out a shelf here and the corner of a closet there in which I can store some homeschool stuff, but certain things--like books, my laptop, projects in progress--need to be kept on hand. I'm far too lazy to be continuously pulling stuff out of storage and then stowing it again just a little while later. The layout of our apartment here is a little funky; the kitchen is tiny and the second bedroom is more like a loft, but the bathrooms have a ton of counter space. I'd never really found a use for all that square footage of blue formica before I started homeschooling my son. (If I "put my face on" each morning like some women do, the counters would for sure be laden with foundations and eyeshadows and lipsticks and such. As it is, I've been feeling proud of myself lately because I haven't been forgetting to coat my freckly face in sunscreen everyday.) Now I just stash half-finished projects on the bathroom counters whenever I need to stop sewing or cutting or gluing and start cooking or cleaning or racing Hot Wheels cars around what used to be our kitchen table (before it became Parker's play table). I even keep our new printer on the counter in the upstairs bathroom. There's really no other horizontal surface upon which to place it.

Teachers often half-think about their to-do lists throughout the day; the lesson plans they need to write, the materials they need to prepare for upcoming classes. For the past several weeks, at random moments, I've found myself worrying about a movable alphabet, a crucial component of Montessori classrooms which students use to analyze and form words as they prepare to read and write. I've had some measure of success fabricating homemade Montessori materials, but I knew that creating a functional movable alphabet here at home would be beyond my abilities (or at least beyond my recent energy levels). I could order one, of course, but we've just spent a bundle on fixing cars, buying a laptop and a printer and purchasing Christmas and birthday presents. Our bank account could use a break from debits. I kept thinking about this "Read and Spell" letter game my mom purchased for Parker a year ago. It comes with 86 letter cards, at least two of each letter, the vowels in red and the consonants in blue (including one red, vowel y, and one blue, consonant y). Perfect. The only problem is that the letter cards are all jumbled up in a little box. (Parker could never stand to play the "Read and Spell" letter game for very long because he'd get frustrated trying to find the letters he was looking for.) Movable alphabets should be neatly displayed in a divided box, copies of the same letter placed together, so that the child can easily see (and find) all twenty-six letters of the alphabet. OK, so I had the letters for our movable alphabet, but where would I find a divided box, with at least 26 2"x2" compartments? I searched all over Amazon--craft boxes, tackle boxes, tool boxes, ornament boxes--and even ordered something that I thought might do the trick, but when it arrived the compartments turned out to be too small. Vendors don't describe their products very assiduously, I've discovered. Finally, while we were shopping on St. Thomas last week, I found an almost perfect divided container at Home Depot. It only has 24 compartments, but beggars can't be choosers, right?

Anyway, our new movable alphabet has been sitting around on the bathroom counter upstairs, waiting for me to decide that it's the appropriate time to present it to Parker. I figured he should get through more (if not all) of the phonetic alphabet before he starts to work with the movable alphabet. Probably I should have actually put it away somewhere--and I meant to, I did--because Parker happened upon it and seemed to be totally taken with it. The thing about it being in the bathroom, though, is that Parker kept wanting to work with it right when I was either on my in or on my way out of the shower. Wanting to spell "stupendous" is all fine and good, but I'd rather not help my son sound out a ten-letter word while half-naked. Because of this, I brought the movable alphabet downstairs yesterday morning. I left it on the downstairs bathroom counter, meaning to find a place (more like create a place) to store it, then got distracted and, of course, forgot all about it. I came inside, just before lunchtime, having been working outside, cleaning our deck, then vacuuming out our Jeep, to find Parker spelling "exit" with his pants down around his ankles. Apparently, he'd gone pee and then, seeing the movable alphabet, been so overcome by the urge to spell a word that he couldn't be bothered to pull up his pants. (I pulled up his pants for him, then snapped the below photos.)

"I'm spelling the word exit Mommy!"

Now the last letter.

Exit!

Postscript: The sky yesterday morning was breathtaking. Here are a couple photos I took in between sips of coffee.

I Want My Four Dollars

We ended up having another field trip yesterday. After a couple weeks of being carless (and having frequent car trouble for several weeks before that), our cupboards were decidedly bare. And I'd already used up the black ink cartridge in my new printer; not by printing scads of super fun school materials, but by printing out menu covers for my husband's restaurant. A trip to St. Thomas to do some big-box store shopping was unavoidable. So I skipped my morning walk yesterday, loaded the cooler in the car and drove down to ferry dock instead (with Parker ensconced in his car seat, of course). My shopping list was four stores long (Home Depot, OfficeMax, Kmart and Cost-U-Less, St. Thomas's Costco), and I always get a little harried when I'm hurrying to catch the ferry (for no good reason, since there's always another one arriving within a half hour), but I did remember to grab the four dollars Parker received in a birthday card from his grandparents. (My in-laws didn't just give him cash for his birthday. They sent him actual gifts, too.) Aboard the car barge, on our way to St. Thomas, I gave Parker his four dollars--he'd already declared his intent to use it to buy (toy) cars--and told him he could spend it while we were shopping, if he saw something he liked. I figured we could do some "unschooling" on St. Thomas with those four dollars. Parker and I would have to talk about money, math (what does four dollars buy?), limited resources (it doesn't buy much!) and how to conduct a financial transaction. I intended to give as little input as possible; I wanted the whole episode to instill in him a sense of independence.

Parker asked if we could go to Kmart (or, as he used to call it, the "car store") first. I guess those four dollars were burning a hole in his pocket already. The toy car aisle is all the way in the back of the store, and he fairly ran there, he was so excited. The conversation about limited resources started almost immediately; Parker kept selecting big ticket items, like Hot Wheels tracks and Cars (the Pixar movie) characters. He'd see something he liked, then ask me its price. We talked about "more" and "less"--for instance, if something cost eight dollars, I'd ask Parker whether he had enough money to buy it. "No, Mommy, I need more money for Snot Rod." He did find finally find a few toys he liked, each of which cost about four dollars (thankfully, there's no sale tax here so I didn't have to try to calculate that in), and was having trouble deciding which to buy. That's when I said, "Hey, Bubs, did you know that these Hot Wheels cars each cost only about one dollar? You have enough money to buy three of these cars." Good thing we got an early start yesterday, because that occasioned much more debating and dithering. I could definitely see the wheels turning in his little head as he tried to wrap his brain around the fact that he could use his four dollars to purchase either one single toy or three other toys. Value is such a crazy, intangible concept, is it not?

Well, in the end he decided to buy three Hot Wheels vehicles (one race car, one truck, one plane). He loves those little mass-produced toys so much that I'm sure he would have gladly spent all four of his dollars to buy just one. The fact that he could purchase three obviously elated him. We made our way to the registers and proceeded to practice waiting patiently. It always (always!) takes at least 15 minutes to get through the lines at the St. Thomas Kmart; poor Parker was ready to burst by the time it was finally his turn to pay. He conducted the transaction by himself, and was ecstatic when the saleslady gave him thirteen cents back, in addition to his new toys. It was pretty fun to watch. I wish the rest of the shopping we did yesterday had been as amusing.

In the car, on ferry, clutching his four dollars.

OK, I'm ready to go pay!

Making propellor plane sound effects.

Postscript: The North American Montessori Center's Montessori Homeschool Program is giving away one free program. I'm linking to their site here in order to try to win. I've never ever won anything in my life, but I'd sure like to win this. I mean, I'm having fun getting all crafty and creating our homeschool materials, but man would it be awesome to have the real thing to help me educate my son.

Field Trip

TODAY'S ACTIVITIES:

• Making Patterns
• The Phonetic Alphabet
• Zoology - Anteaters
• Basic Weather Phenomena

Phew. I am finally sitting down. Sometimes, Manic Mondays reduce me to incoherence. My landlady just dropped by with a birthday present for Parker (who turned 4 yesterday!), and I couldn't complete a single sentence whilst briefly conversing with her. I'm pretty sure she is now convinced I've completely lost my marbles. Oh well. She's lived in the Caribbean for over thirty years. She's used to crazy people by now.

Well, both Parker and I woke up this morning still pretty exhausted from yesterday's birthday festivities. But I had high hopes--as well as a long "to do" list--for today. You see, Jack the Traveling Mechanic came to our house on Saturday and by the time he left, late in the evening, our little green Honda was fixed! What a difference possessing a working vehicle makes! I had a lot I wanted (needed!) to do today, and I absolutely wanted to make sure schooltime happened somewhere in the midst of my chores, too. And naptime; I knew that Parker and I definitely needed naps today. And we were actually doing OK on timing at first, but then my husband called and gave me the best Valentine's Day present ever: our (bright red!) Jeep Cherokee was finally ready to come home! So, just when we were about to start school, Parker and I quickly put our shoes back on, drove our old green Honda down to the bank (mechanics down here take cash, and only cash), waited in line in order to withdraw a bunch of money, stopped at St. John Spice to buy some whole coriander seeds for the restaurant, picked up my husband and drove up to Hally's gravel lot to find our Cherokee fabulously, fantastically fixed. (KNOCK WOOD!) After we paid for the repairs, my husband drove back to work on his own in the Honda and Parker and I drove to the playground in the Cherokee. (That my husband could drive away on his own was cause for joyous celebration; he and I have been sharing a single vehicle for almost six years. It can be a little stressful: two drivers, one car.)

Now, it was almost noon by the time we'd collected the Cherokee and were driving down the hill, back towards Cruz Bay. We definitely could have dutifully returned home, done some school activities, eaten a quick lunch and then settled down for naptime. It was totally possible. Did we? No. I looked at Parker, Parker looked at me, and we drove straight to the playground. Sometimes (especially those times when you've finally gotten your car back after being stuck at home for weeks on end) a field trip is necessary. We had a grand time at the playground today. We experimented with a simple machine (a lever, aka the seesaw), we had fun with gravity (descending and ascending multiple slides), we made patterns out of leaves and rocks, we practiced the letters a, t, n and o (using sand in lieu of salt), we discussed (and then pretended to be) anteaters (digging holes in the sand to look for ants and termites to eat with our sticky tongues), we polished our social skills after meeting a nice little boy and his mother and then we had a quick chat about weather, as some storm clouds approached and we hurriedly gathered our sand trucks and said goodbye to our new friends. (The rain turned out to be fortuitous in that we had enough time after we got home to shower and snack before Parker's afternoon tumbling class.) It was so nice to get out of the house for a while. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.