This was Scott's favorite book, too, when he was a little boy.
Stay-cation Day Two
Only a quickie post for now. What a day we had yesterday! Took the
big girls to Julian, our favorite little California mountain town. This
time we tried something new: visited the beautiful Smith Ranch
and took a narrow-gauge train ride into an old gold mine. SO MUCH FUN.
The engineer/tour guide/ranch owner was the nicest guy and had so much
fascinating history to share with us. The tour usually lasts an hour
but we were having so much fun he stretched it almost to two hours for
us! More detailed post to follow. Have put some pix up at Flickr if you want a preview. (Added a few more photos to the Sea World set, too.)
Vacation Day One
Scott is taking his first real vacation since we moved to San Diego.
Yes, I’m excited. My awesome parents have flown in from Denver and are
entertaining my "twins" while Scott and I take the big girls on some
outings of the sort that can be a wee bit difficult to mesh with the
needs of little ones.
So yesterday, after two years of oohing wistfully over the proximity (i.e. 20 minutes from home), we went to Sea World.
Of course, if you follow me on Twitter, you already know this.
I’ve put a few photos up at Flickr.
Mostly, though, I was too busy waving to my girls as their cars paused at
the top of horrifically scary rides and revisiting my adolescent Vicky Austin-wannabe fantasies at the dolphin tanks.
Not to mention sobbing with awe through the Shamu show.
Not sure what’s in store for today. It’s possible I overdid the
walking a teeny tiny bit yesterday. Today might have to be even more of
a sit-and-wave-at-daughters kind of day for me.
One Home, Many Hopes
Lifted in toto from Scott’s blog (Scott’s pal DT’s brother is one of the people behind this project):
This is a campaign called “One Home Many Hopes,”
organized to ask people to consider donating $10 in an effort to raise
$20,000 in 30 days.”One Home Many Hopes” is a charity Jon Tapper, who owns a public
relations firm in Boston called Melwood Global, helped put together
last year after a good friend of his was moved to action by the poverty
he saw in Mtwapa, Kenya.In short, there is an orphanage, Mudzini Kwetu, which takes care of 35 girls, all of whom were rescued from the Mtwapa streets, where they searched through trash piles for food. Mudzini Kwetu not only gives these girls a home they didn’t previously have, it has also given them a childhood.
So the gist is that we’re trying to raise a lot of money—$20,000—in
tiny donations by November 23. People can become a part of it by
visiting Raceto20K.org to make a donation, as well as telling friends, families and colleagues about the effort.They can also visit One Home, Many Hopes to learn more about this amazing organization.
There is absolutely no overhead for this charity—every last penny you give you will go directly to the girls.
Thanks to everyone who considers participating.
Thursday Links
- Editorial Ass: C[r]ash Flow (Or What Went Wrong in October in Book Publishing) – Why we should buy books. (Like I need an excuse.)
- Full Circle: Color Blocks – I think I’ll have my girls make a set of these for Wonderboy. Fun all around.
- BBC NEWS | Technology | Google Earth revives ancient Rome – Too cool. HT: Alice.
- Make Baby Stuff – A whole website full of tutorials and patterns for making lovely handmade baby things.
- The Bower–Small Meadow Press – Lesley’s new Calendar of One’s Own is ready and waiting. So very lovely!
Wednesday Links
- Jen Robinson’s Book Page: Five Favorite Fictional Rooms from Children’s Literature – fun.
- Our New Video Series: Top Children’s Lit Blog Posts of the Day! | Children’s Writing Web Journal – neato.
- Cajun Cottage Under the Oaks: I Smell Something Baking – It’s time for another book giveaway at Cay’s!
- Frog And Toad Are Still Friends: It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
– Beck skewers Oprah’s Christmas list. "This is the sort of thing that
always makes me doubt my own taste. I mean, I think it looks like a
beetle with a handle and not in a good way." Oh how I love Beck.
Special ’Livery
Have
you ever pre-ordered a book and then forgotten you’ve done so? And then
months later you get the shipping notice, and it’s like a little piece
of Christmas in your in-box? That’s what happened to me the other day
when a certain online book retailer notified me that my copy of Alicia
Paulson’s long-awaited Stitched in Time: Memory Keeping Projects to Sew and Share was on its way. It’ll be here today. (You may know Alicia from her delightful blog, Posie Gets Cozy, which was the very first handcrafts blog I ever subscribed to.)
Hurry on over, Mr. UPS Man; we can’t wait to get cozy with this book! (Good thing I got all caught up on my Cybils
reading yesterday. I can’t peruse any more nominees until the next
batch of library holds comes in, or until another nice fat packet
arrives from a publisher. Which may well be today. We’ve been keeping
Mr. UPS Man hopping lately. And may I just say he is one of the nicest
guys you’ll ever meet? One day he brought us a bag of clementines from
his neighbor’s tree—he said he’d been given so many he couldn’t eat
them all and he thought maybe my kids would enjoy them. Don’t think I’m
unaware this is all Rilla’s doing: she charms him daily with her warm
reception as he jogs up our driveway with packages stacked high. "Hi
dere! You ’liver dat for me?")
Picture Book Spotlight: Jumpy Jack & Googily
Jumpy Jack and Googily by Meg Rosoff and Sophie Blackall. Henry Holt & Co.
What a charmer this picture book is. Scores very high on the
giggle-meter with my gang. Jumpy Jack is a snail of the most nervous
sort. As lovably neurotic anthropomorphizations go, Jack’s right up
there with Piglet, friend of Pooh. Fortunately, Jumpy Jack has his best
friend Googily to put his mind to rest when the monster-worries creep
in. Jack fears monsters are lurking at every turn—monsters with big
round eyes and sharp teeth and lolling tongues and possibly even creepy
bowler hats. Googily—he’s the amiable fellow in blue you see there—is a
little puzzled by Jack’s boogieman complex, but he’s always happy to
help soothe his pal’s fears by taking a peek into the corners Jack’s
sure are hiding fearsome monsters.
In the end, we find that Googily has a fear of his own—and
apparently with better reason than Jumpy Jack! The surprise ending
elicited belly laughs from my seven- and two-year-olds.
I really love this sweet and simple picture book. It’s fresh and
funny, and the art is enchanting, and the text holds up well to
numerous re-readings, which is a quality I very much watch for in a
young picture book. If I’m going to have to read it aloud five times a
day, it’s got to be readable.
But beyond that, I appreciate the way the plot plays with the idea
that people can create monsters in their minds, terrifying specters
composed of stereotypes, while being oblivious to the fact that the
generalizations they are throwing around so carelessly might very well
include real people they know and love.
Saturday Links
- ConsumerReports.org – Organic products, when buying organic pays (and doesn’t) –
- just another day of Catholic pondering: Tweet Tweet – Another Twitter fan is born.
- Do we live in a police state? – Fayetteville Observer piece by Daryl Cobranchi about police using tasers on high school students.
- Mama To Mama – "connecting families through the gift of the handmade"
- Bookie Woogie – "Three kids and their dad talk about books." Fun!
Snippets
We have two ripe strawberries on our potted strawberry plant. It’s
November. San Diego is a strange place to live after you’ve put in a
couple of decades on the East Coast.
Wonderboy had an OT evaluation at the Children’s Hospital last
month. I finally got the written report yesterday. It’s full of errors!
I’ll have to write a list of corrections and ask for an updated report,
because I don’t want inaccuracies in his file. Highly annoying.
But his IEP meeting earlier this week went wonderfully well. I think
the school district finally has a read on who we are, this family of
mine (especially the obnoxious, mouthy mama), and they’re meeting us
where we are, now. Hooray. And oh how I love Wonderboy’s speech
therapist. She really is a gem. And I’m not just saying that because
yesterday she raved about the progress we’d made at home during the
week and told me I should be a speech pathologist myself.
My second-favorite moment from the meeting: when, after listening to
rest of the IEP team group-wrangle their statements into educationese
for the Official Paperwork, I was asked to contribute the "parent
goals" and I figured I’d save time by just uttering it in the IEP
jargon to begin with. Moment of silence around the table, then they all
burst out laughing. Me, grinning: "Did I nail it?" School district lady
in charge of entering everything into the computer: "Say it again, just
like that, so I can type it in." Heh.
Favorite moment from the meeting: leaving, with my little boy’s hand
in mine, and his eager voice saying, "We go home now? Go play with my
tisters?"
Oh how I love that child.
On Monday, I sat down with a giant pile of picture books to read for
the Cybils. Rose and Bean joined me, and we wound up sitting there for
hours, reading book after book after book. Passing them around: Ooh,
you’re going to love this one! (They know me well: they were right
every time.) I’m going to have to write posts about some of them
because there are some must-share gems in the stack. Next time you make
a library run, look for Chester’s Back! by Melanie Watt. Even if you don’t have little kids. We were crying laughing, even the thirteen-year-old. Especially the thirteen-year-old. The Lucky Star and One Hen just plain made me cry. And Dinosaur vs. Bedtime? Rilla’s new Favorite Book Ever. Bet I read it six times yesterday alone. Roar!
