Monthly Archives: June 2006

Poetry

Poetry Mad-Libs

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George Ella Lyons wrote a poem about the things that shape a person, the events and images and words that cohere to create a sense of place. “I am from the dirt under the black porch./ (Black, glistening,/ it tasted like beets.)” The poem has become a meme; you may have seen examples here and there.

Now Loni, one of my fellow ClubMom Bloggers, is sponsoring a contest: Write your own version of the “I Am From” poem—or have your kid write one—and post it on your blog. Send Loni the link and she’ll enter you in her contest. She’s offering actual prizes!

The template is here and the contest rules are here. The deadline is June 21st. Hey Agnes, this one has your name written all over it!

Writing

My Children: Test Audience

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One of the best things—maybe THE best—about writing children’s books for a living is getting to try out your stories on your own children first. When they get caught up in the tale you’re reading and forget that you’re their mom and you wrote this, when you get to the end of a chapter and they beg for just one more and you laugh and say there ISN’T any more, I haven’t written it yet and they wring their hands and implore you to just TELL the next bit, oh pleeeease, you have to!—that’s when you know you have the very best job (or combination of jobs) in the whole world.

(As opposed to, say, when you’re writing out giant checks to various medical practitioners because as freelancers you and your husband no longer enjoy the cushy benefits you did when on staff at giant publishing conglomerations.)

Lately I’ve been wondering how many other children’s book authors out there are revelling in the same delicious experience. I can think of one. Like mine, I believe that particular author’s flesh-and-blood critics are brutally frank, which is of course the most useful kind of critic you can have. That’s why children make the best test audience; if they fidget or go “huh?” you know you’ve got some polishing to do. But when you get it right, oh, there is nothing, nothing better than the sight of their heads thrown back in laughter, the sound of their belly laughs in all the right places.

Hearing Loss, Nature Study

Ear Molds and Monster Update

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This week’s Carnival of Homeschooling is up and About. I haven’t had a chance to explore yet because we are distracted here by a lot of things having to do with ears. Today is New Ear Mold day. (“Ear mold” being almost as icky a phrase as yesterday’s winner, “muscular warts.”) But we loooove ear molds here. Ear molds are the little custom-made pieces of plasticky stuff that connect to Wonderboy’s hearing aids. The molds must fit snugly in the ear, so you need new ones every six months or so. For the rest of your life. Because ears are the only body part (except maybe noses?) that never stop growing. Never, no matter how old you are. That is why elderly gentlemen have such large earlobes.

This means a lifetime of ear-mold-making is in store for my boy. Fortunately, the hearing aids themselves last a good long while. Five years, we hope, because they cost more than the computer I’m writing on. More than two of these computers, in fact. The aids go behind your ear and a little tube snakes over the ear into the ear mold, thus piping sound directly into your ear canal. I ♥ modern technology.

Cool fact about ear molds: they come in different colors. Any color you want! Well, almost. If you want your basic rainbow shades, at least, or a flesh tone. Last time we went for the glow-in-the-dark version. In the light, they’re just a nondescript clear color, so you forget all about their glowing properties until you walk into a dark room with the child and suddenly there are little luminous blobs floating in the air. This makes for great fun at bedtime: holding the aid-wearing toddler, sneak into your other children’s bedroom after lights-out and listen to them yelp at the sight of ectoplasm bobbing across the room several feet. Heh.

This time Scott is the one who got to take the boy for the mold-making. They are there right now. I don’t know what color he’ll choose.* This is somewhat nervewracking. What if he goes for the yellow and it winds up looking like ear wax?

But you’re waiting for the Flesh-Eating Monster update. Well, um, I can’t find him. I assume he is lounging inside the blackened husk of poor Homer’s body, now that he has eaten it hollow. Ohhh, I am hostile toward this thing. I snipped loose the silken threads that held Homer to his twig and moved (shrieking the whole time) him (presumably them, though the Monster was nowhere to be seen, the sneaky bugger) into another container. I can just picture the Creature leaning back in his tragically deceased lair, rubbing his creepy black feet together with glee. Mine, mine, aaalll mine! A rent-free studio apartment with edible walls and a jungle view! Our guess is that he has hidden himself away to do his own pupating thing. We’ve decided (I lost the vote) to keep him around until he transforms, so that we can make a real identification. “Foul Murdering Beast” strikes Jane as unscientific. I also suggested “Grendel” but the children feel that is incompatible with the non-Danish names of the caterpillars. Humph. Hydra, then? Because I just bet if we did cut off his head, he’d sprout a bunch more.

In any case: Herodotus, you are safe! We hope! We cannot guarantee anything because we have not actually seen the Monster since I got that picture of him yesterday. So keep watching your back, little friend. If you see him coming, I recommend a left muscular wart right to the kisser.

*UPDATE: Scott went for what he thought where the glow-in-the-dark ear molds again. But it turns out they’re just clear, no luminous properties. We think. They’ll arrive in two weeks so we’ll know for sure then. Ah well!

Next caterpillar update is here.

Art, Books, Picture Book Spotlight

Monday in the Park with George

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081094811701_aa240_sclzzzzzzz_Seurat and La Grande Jatte: Connecting the Dots by Robert Burleigh. Scott picked this up at the library and Beanie has been glued to it ever since. (When not standing nose-to-the-plastic in front of our butterfly house of horrors.) It’s a picture book about the famous Georges Seurat painting, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, 1884 (best known to people of my generation as the painting that so affected Cameron in the best high school movie ever).

“What do we notice first?” Burleigh asks, serving as our tour guide as we get up close and personal with the painting. He shares with us the history of La Grande Jatte and, in an engaging I-Spy-inspired manner, helps us notice every tiny detail. “How many of the following people, animals, and objects can you find?” Monkey on leash, check. Woman knitting, check. Beanie will pore over the pages for half an hour at a stretch. She knows this painting intimately now, and she will never forget it. Burleigh takes us beyond the painting into discussions of pointillism and Impressionism, of Seurat’s work process, of the use of color and light in art: discussions my older girls and I found fascinating. But for my five-year-old, the attraction of this book is in finding the treasures in the dots.

Nature Study

Then Again, Maybe Ignorance Was Bliss

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If you haven’t read Part One of our caterpillar mystery, you’ll want to go here first. Just don’t get too attached to Homer. Someone else has already beaten you to it.

Of all the caterpillars in all the world, you had to lay an egg in mine.

Ghoulish

I know this is a lousy image, but believe me, it’s the best of the fifty I snapped. It is clear why ClubMom didn’t hire me to be the photo blogger. Lucky for me they had a need for a children’s-book-author-slash-homeschooling-mom-who-unwittingly-invites-flesh-eating-monsters-into-her-home blogger.

If you click to enlarge that photo and then squint really hard while sticking out your tongue and holding your breath, you can see The Creature at the left end of the caterpillar, next to the twig. See the pointy thing on its head? That would be one of the little feelers it waves around when pausing to survey its licorice-scented domain between bites. BITES. Of caterpillar. Or rather, of pupa. Alas, poor Homer. Never shall he spread his blue-black wings and flit from blossom to blossom. He was doomed before we even met him, though we didn’t know it.

The Mystery Creature’s disappearing act? It seems the reason we kept losing track of him was because he was hiding inside Homer’s body. ::::::can’t stop shuddering:::::: We don’t know for sure that he, the Monster, is the larva of an ichneumonid wasp, but it seems likely. The adult wasp, armed with a pointy flesh-piercing tube called an ovipositor, lays its eggs in the bodies of poor unsuspecting Homers. When the eggs hatch, they munch their way out, merrily feasting on their hosts. Wasp larva: Thanks for the lift. Caterpillar: No problem. And hey, dinner’s on me!

I was all for chucking The Creature right out the door, but my gentle maidens are fascinated by Nature in all her gory splendor. So (gack) It remains a houseguest, still lunching on poor old Homer. You can bet its hours are numbered, though. I don’t know how long its own pupa stage lasts, and there’s no way we’re letting that thing turn into a wasp. We’ve got Herodotus to think about.

Help_1Herodotus says: Helllllp!

The story continues here.

Nature Study

Can You See the Caterpillar in This Photo?

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Whereisit_1

No? Me either. Nor in the 176 other photos I took. Nor can I spot the little beast in actual real life. But we know he is there. He is apparently some kind of phantom ninja caterpillar. Or possibly a young Snuffleupagus. We are not sure, as he has not stayed visible long enough for us to make a positive identification.

Pillar1_1
When we started this venture, there was no mystery. The kids found two black swallowtail caterpillars on Jane’s parsley plant. We dug out our old butterfly jungle (thanks again, Grandma) and made them a nice comfy home. With sticks! And fennel! It’s like a Barbie Dream House for caterpillars. And for three or four days they milled around, chomping happily, or at least we assumed it was a happy kind of chomping. There was, for example, no belligerent waving of tiny black feet. (Side note: did you know that a caterpillar only has three pairs of legs? Just the three pairs closest to the head. All the rest, so Jane tells me, are not true legs. They are, and I quote, muscular warts. Muscular. Warts. Ew.)

So all was blissful in the suburban butterfly jungle, and as a testimony to his happiness, Caterpillar #1 (Homer to his friends) pigged out on so much fresh-picked fennel that he could continue no longer in his present state of six-legged-many-muscular-wartedness, and he hung himself. From a stick, I mean, as happy caterpillars do.

Caterpillar1_1

The next day he looked like this:

Pillar2

Pillar4
Meanwhile, Happy Caterpillar #2 (aka Herotodus) continued his milling and munching. Second-favorite pastime: scaling invisible walls. Occasionally he would grow bored with the fennel and, for a diversion, burst out of his skin and eat the old one. (Photo mercifully unavailable.)

Thus far, no mysteries. A degree of grossness, perhaps, but my younger children seem to believe that is the Best Part of adopting caterpillars. Look! Five hundred tiny balls of poop! Jane tells them that no, the miracle of metamorphosis is the Best Part, but Beanie remains staunch in her conviction that butterflies are nice, but they are simply not as riveting as Creatures Who Eat Their Own Skin.

Anyway. Now we come to the mysterious part. Rose was the first to spot a third critter in the jungle. There was a skinny little wormish looking thing lurking on the branch near Homer. Pressing our noses to the plastic wall, we decided the Little Thing was another caterpillar, an itty bitty one, possibly just hatched. Perhaps, we surmised, he had entered the jungle as a stowaway on the most recent fennel delivery. I ran for the camera, hoping the zoom function would help us to make an ID.

But he was gone. I swear, only thirty seconds had passed and we were all right there talking about fennel and butterfly eggs. One moment we saw him, and the next, he was nowhere to be found. We peered into the jungle, searching every inch. No wormy thing.

Over the next day, I bet I spent a combined total of two hours hunting for that thing. We scrutinized every bump on the branches, every shadow among the feathery fennel leaves. Nada. Maybe, Rose suggested, he had crawled out one of the airholes in the top. After all, he was small enough to fit. This is the point when Scott decided it would be funny to tickle the back of my neck with his fingertips. Ah ha ha ha. You will be relieved to know that caterpillars appear unaffected by high-pitched human shrieking even when it occurs two feet from their teeny tiny caterpillar ears. Also, any partly deaf toddlers in the vicinity will be highly amused.

Boyjune7
Did you say something, Mommy?

So: for some thirty-six hours, the searching and the shuddering. And then suddenly, there it was. Still teeny tiny, still hanging out by Homer. On Homer, actually. Homer has a groupie! Because, you know, metamorphosis is cool.

This time I was the sole witness of Wormish Thing’s reappearance. I had to show the kids. Once more I sprinted for the camera. Twenty seconds later I was back, already zooming my lens.

And it was gone. Again. Gone! Poof! Forget metamorphosis, this creature can teleport!

Later in the day, Rose spotted him halfway down Homer’s branch. Her story is uncorroborated, but I believe her.

He’s toying with us, I know it.

***

After I wrote all this, I happened to be passing by the butterfly jungle, pointedly not looking for the Thing, when a tiny wiggling caught my eye, and there he was again. Back at his favored post, on top of poor old Homer. Who has yet, by the way, to shed that last caterpillar skin and be a really truly chrysalis. Frankly, I’m a little concerned. I cannot help but suspect the Thing of nefarious purpose. What if he is not a baby caterpillar at all? What if his affection for Homer is not fraternal but rather the sort of affection I feel for, say, chocolate? Is it possible that in addition to his ninja powers he possesses a taste for Pupa?

(Herodotus: run!)

Well, this time I was too quick for him. If he is up to no good, I’ve got a photo ID. Police detectives still carry magnifying glasses, right? Because they may need one in order to penetrate his Cunning Disguise. Ha HA! I will hide as a bump on a twig! Their Giant Human Eyes will never spot me! *click* Curses! They have a zoom lens! Crafty humans…

Aha_1

Thus ends the first installment of The Great Caterpillar (or Possibly Not a Caterpillar) Mystery. Next chapter to come when someone metamorphosizes or pupates or gets eaten or something. UPDATE: Part Two is here.

Nohands
Herodotus says: Look, Ma! No hands muscular warts!

Clippings

Practicing What One Preaches

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I tried to leave a polite inquiry on Reverend Jim West’s blog, but for some reason Blogger won’t let me comment. Perhaps Dr. West will be so kind as to respond to me here. He has written a series of posts harshly criticizing home education, which he opposes, he says, on theological grounds. Well, he’s welcome to his opinion, and I have no interest in trying to change his mind.

However. I find some curious and uncharitable inconsistencies in his statements, and I wonder if he himself is aware that he is repeatedly contradicting himself—and is doing so in a manner which runs counter to a central tenet of his religion, which instructs him to do unto others as he would have them do unto him.

In a recent post, Dr. West satirized homeschooling by presenting a fictional character whose home education by his uneducated mother resulted in tragic illiteracy and poverty. Thanks to “Bob Little’s” ignorant mother, he grows up to be a street sweeper who lives in a cardboard box. As satire goes, this one is clumsy and silly; among the evidence of Bob’s educational shortcomings is the observation that he “was a regular sight at the soup kitchen during the raging days of the Great Depression.” You don’t say. At least Imaginary Bob would have been in good company, standing in the bread lines with the thousands of well educated folks made destitute by the Depression. Ahem.

You know, I love a good satire. Dr. West’s post was not a good satire, but I’d have been willing to roll my eyes and move on if it weren’t for what comes next.

Blogger Christopher Heard wrote a post pointing out an unfortunate irony in Dr. West’s post:

The really funny thing about the satire is that Jim—a product of public education who holds a Th.D. from a non-accredited, distance-learning seminary, teaches at a non-accredited, distance-learning seminary, and and constantly champions the cause of quality control in scholarship against dilettantes even though the school of theology for which he teaches “offers a free and open educational resource for self-learners everywhere”—cannot properly form the plural of “homeschooler.”

I’d giggled over that too. Dr. West responded that the grammatical error was deliberate, an extension of the satire. I shall give him the benefit of the doubt. However, in his public response to Chris Heard, Jim West makes the following statement:

In any event, if folk have questions perhaps its best if they ask me directly rather than depending on infidel message boards or incorrect web addresses and slanderous misinformation. I may well oppose homeschooling on theological grounds- but Chris evidently opposes finding out the facts first. Readers will have to decide for themselves which is more egregious.

(Emphasis mine.)

And here, Dr. West, is my question for you. I am glad to hear you oppose “slanderous misinformation” and believe that omitting to “find out the facts first” is egregious. It puzzles me, though, that you are unaware of the manner in which your satire promotes slanderous misinformation (through the suggestion that homeschoolers are inadequately educated) and that you yourself are prone to making statements for which you have no factual basis. For example, you wrote,

Agape Press reports today One of the authors of a proposed resolution urging the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) to come up with a plan to pull its children from public schools says the resolution is a “call to holiness” and a “call to obey God’s Word.”

That of course is pure unadulterated rubbish. But what can you expect from two people who have neither theological training nor any sort of intelligent comprehension of the Christian mission. Only the most foolhardy and uninformed fall for the notion being peddled by the “exodizers”.

The only people who pull their kids from public schools out of fear are the same sort who haven’t ever read the Bible in Greek or Hebrew. In other words, they are the sort of people who get all their information second hand. This whole crusade is nothing but another in the long line of senseless crusades entered into by frenzied, uninformed, twaddling and prattling mobs of unwashed peasants. And it is doomed to failure. Fortunately.

To brand homeschoolers “frenzied, uninformed, twaddling and prattling mobs of unwashed peasants” is not only uncharitable in the extreme—a clear violation of the Golden Rule—it is also the presentation of unsupported opinion as fact. You, sir, have failed to “find out the facts first.” Homeschoolers may be many things, but “uninformed” is a word that seldom, if ever, applies. It certainly doesn’t apply across the board. Neither are we frenzied. (We may, sometimes, be unwashed.) If you are serious about the faith you profess, you ought to understand that hypocrisy is explicitly disallowed.

Chris Heard’s post apparently contained an error about the college you attended. This bothered you, and you blasted him for it. He apologized. Yet you yourself have repeatedly made public statements riddled with factual errors and have shown no willingness to educate yourself with the facts. Readers will have to decide for themselves which is more egregious.

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Family, Wonderboy

No, Thank YOU

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Wonderboy sees that his baby sister has spit up a little, so he trots off to find a burp cloth. He brings it to her, dabs her mouth, then touches his free hand to her chin, flat-palmed, and pulls the hand out and away—helping her sign “thank you.”

“Hank oo,” he says, in case I missed it.

I’m glad I didn’t.