IMPORTANT BIRTHDAY UPDATE!!

Here we see Elliot and one of his friends, Babar.




He is subjecting Babar to an examination to see if he has bumped his head, which is what happened to the monkies who jump on the bed. Elliot is super-interested in the subject of who has bumped their head. (And he wags his finger around whenever the doctor delivers his orders: "no more monkies jumping on the bed.")

As it turns out, Babar is fine.

Babar is a good friend. He was introduced to us by another friend who is actually a person, Amy E, and Amy's gift of Babar is significant for a couple of reasons.

First, Amy and I share a particular affection for Elephants. They are powerful but also very delicate. They are wild, and also they paint. So: elephants. Amy has been one of Elliot's major suppliers of elephants.

Second, this particular Babar was Amy's gift to Elliot on his first birthday, and to ensure that Elliot had the right Babar Amy did extensive research and ordered this one from France, and he arrived with special French tags still in place; a world traveller. Lest you think that this is extraordinary gift-giving behavior, let me assure you that it is not extraordinary for Amy, who also had a special elephant-themed quilt commissioned for Elliot's actual birth, also a favorite.

One thing that is special about Elephants is that they show remarkable emotional sensitivity, particularly the female elephants. They mark the life passages of each other. When one elephant gives birth, the others gather around her and trumpet supportively.

Amy has been a major trumpeter for Elliot. She greeted him with love and attends to his growing with care.

Thus today, we would like to return the favor by sending a resounding elephant TARROOOO westward to Los Angeles, to say to Amy: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

We trumpet for you because we love you very much.

In the spirit of your birthday, let us now quote Dr. Suess, who also appreciated elephants:

So we'll go to the top of the toppest blue space,
The Official Katroo Birthday Sounding-Off Place!
Come on! Open your mouth and sound off at the sky!
Shout loud at the top of your voice, "I AM I!
ME!
I am I!
And I may not know why
But I know that I like it.
Three cheers! I AM I!"

Dressing your Children Ethically

Specifically, dressing your daughters.

Although the question of young-girl fashion in the age of Bratz is not an issue upon which I myself have a fully formulated opinion, I totally appreciated this little mini article, the title of which you will enjoy, especially if you are Beck: "Dear Moms: Your 6-year old Daughter's Ass is Not Juicy."

Now, I think the question of children and their sexuality is a complicated one, and in my (as I said, not fully formulated) thinking on this issue, I'd say that your child probably will be interested in sex and sexuality regardless of whether or not you buy them low-rise jeans. What I feel more strongly about is that there's enough of life spent worrying if your jeans make your butt look good or whether or not you should get your hair highlighted, and whether or not people are looking at your jeans or your highlights, and that commodification and stylization is something that you should probably not have to be worrying about when you are still learning how to read and play four-square.

Spring

We need spring!

Elliot likes to point out trees in books now -- you can ask him, Elliot where are the trees? And he will point to them.

But he always goes for the ones with no leaves. That's what the concept of "tree" means to him right now -- bare branches.

We need spring!

Eating Ethically

Okay, so the author of one of our favorite cookbooks is this guy, Mark Bittman, who also writes a great column about food in the New York Times. He normally writes about basic cooking things, like how to make simple and excellent bread. But lately he's done some really good columns/articles about the way food is produced. I find his stuff very interesting, because it's mostly written from the perspective of someone who really loves food, and thinks food is important on its own terms--which makes his stuff particularly compelling.

Anyway, today for example he links to a column about the logistics of organic farming; I would be interested if anyone who reads this is a farmer, or has a background that would allow them to evaluate the numbers? It seems interesting to me.

Also recently, he wrote this very disturbing article about the effects of large-scale meat production. Now, Mark Bittman is no vegetarian, and neither are we. I have worked on a farm, and I have thought a lot about ethics, and I think that there is no ethical problem with being a part of a food chain in which something dies or is killed, and you eat it.

That said: lately I have been thinking a lot about our grocery store habits. We're not completely gung-ho organic, and we're certainly not going veg. But we are trying to make some changes, not only because of concern about our own and Elliot's health, but more importantly because of an attempt to live a little lighter on the world. We're lucky enough to have the resources to spend a little more on our food if we need to...I guess I see spending more on food that's raised more ethically as sort of a "vote with your money" way of making a charitable donation--rather than giving money to the Sierra Club, this year, we are buying organic milk.

Anyway, these are some of the changes we're making. I don't mean them as diagnostic, because I don't really know enough...I'm more interested in starting a conversation, if anyone is interested, on how to make easy and effective food changes. We are open to suggestions.

1. We are indeed buying organic milk. I read a pretty compelling piece about how milk is a very effective thing to buy organic, not so much because organic milk is healthier, but because cows require so many resources. When you buy organic milk, you're "voting" for organic feed for those cows, too.
2. We are trying to buy antibiotic free meat whenever possible. This means we go to whole foods more than we'd like, but there it is. I will say that I was recently making a recipe that involved shredding some chicken, and half of the chicken was fancy whole foods stuff, and half of it was from costco, and I COULD TOTALLY TELL, as I was shredding it, which was which. The whole foods suff was noticably moister.
   
3. We are trying in general to eat less beef (sigh--this is hard for me) and get protein lower on the food chain.
4. We are arguing a lot about the organic/local foods divide. From what I can tell, the evidence is still a little sketchy on this point.
   
5. Other foods which we have been convinced to go organic on, from either a health or taste perspective, include: apples, sweet potatoes, and peanut butter.
   

Okay, that's all for now. I just wanted to throw this out there. To recap: read that creepy article about meat. And make that YUMMY YUMMY recipe for bread.

Two Updates!

Hi there! We wanted to say two things. First of all, the "apple book" of which Elliot speaks is this one:

And truly, we can't praise it enough. We are not sure who gave us this WONDERFUL WONDERFUL book, but we are very grateful. Thank you!

Second, and more importantly, we officially have a new cousin! We would like to announce the birth of Alexander Daniel Hiles, 4 lbs 8 oz, born late last night to Tom and Sara. Welcome to the family, Alex! We are excited about your safe delivery (yay Sara!) and can't wait to meet you.

new friend on the way!

I'm all hyped up this morning and just had to tell you, because i think that right now elliot is in the process of acquiring a new cousin!  Or rather, to be exact I am in the process of acquiring a new cousin, but I think it's likely that this new baby being born today will be more of a playmate to Elliot than me.  

Anyway, it's exciting!  I'm bouncing around wondering if it's still useful to knit a hat for a new baby in late March, in the south?  Do southland spring babies need hats?  I am sending my love to that little soon-to-be-baby's small head.  Send your love, too--this baby is coming a little earlier than expected and so will, hats aside, definitely need lots of soft blankets and feelings to stay safe and warm.

PS: Elliot slept in until 7 this morning, and we are all just in GREAT MOODS!  C'mon over now for tea, and sprinting up and down the hallway.

we think he might have discovered adjectives

or, like, proper nouns or something.  anyway, this weekend he seems to refer to a particular book--a book with an apple on the cover--as "apple book," and just this morning seems to have refered to another book--which features a gorilla unlocking a lot of doors--as a "key book."

we're not sure, and we know that this is still kinda small potatoes compared to some of elliot's peers who like, know the alphabet, i swear.  but really!  Apple book!  yay!

Overheard

"...and today in the gorilla book he identified not just the gorilla and the key and the banana, but also the mouse AND both the lion -- AND the elephant!"

These are our small household victories. They are our treasures and we hoard them!

Poop Springs Eternal

Well, tonight it is supposed to snow, so you might not guess it, but--we're heading towards spring. We've had three days worth of thaw, and some bright sun, and that means: spring! soon!

But it is not yet spring, and not only because we are expected another freeze. No, we're in that weird liminal season between winter and spring which, in our neighborhood, is marked by: disolving doggie poo. Everywhere.

All winter, people have been letting their dogs poop in snow banks. They probably didn't mean anything by it. Probably they just didn't expect the dog to poop twice on that walk, and only had one bag, and were wearing their slippers anyway, and didn't feel like wading into a snow bank and getting their feet frozen while digging around for a sunken pile of poo and then trying to untie the old poo bag and get the new poo in without letting the old poo fall out. They probably felt kind of bad, but decided that it was really cold, and afterall, it was only one poo.

But we live in an awfully dense neighborhood. So that one little poo had been joined by the poos of other dogs, owned by other slipper-clad dog owners. Lots of other dogs and other poos. All those innocent little poos have been hidden and preserved by the winter chill. And now, in the thaw, the melting slush drips away leaving dead grass, black earth, and a medley of moistened poo piles, eroding away into little poo rivulets, accumulating into little poo puddles in the gutter. It is the season of dissolving poo.

Brandon came in from walking Ada this morning, and said, "it's dissolving poo day." And I sighed. But we are more used to poo around here, than we used to be. Especially because Elliot isn't eating much these days, we tend to see poos as hopeful things. As in: he pooped? Ah! Well, he did eat something! He's growing after all!

And in that spirit, and in honor of the (dissolving poo) season, I have been thinking about this poem, by Maxine Kumin. I'll paste it in incase your home is similarly preoccupied by the signs of...growing things.

Excrement Poem
It is done by us all, as God disposes, from
the least cast of worm to what must have been
in the case of the brontosaur, say, spoor
of considerable heft, something awesome.

We eat, we evacuate, survivors that we are.
I think these things each morning with shovel
and rake, drawing the risen brown buns
toward me, fresh from the horse oven, as it were,

or culling the alfalfa-green ones, expelled
in a state of ooze, through the sawdust bed
to take a serviceable form, as putty does,
so as to lift out entire from the stall.

And wheeling to it, storming up the slope,
I think of the angle of repose the manure
pile assumes, how sparrows come to pick
the redilvered grain, how inky-cap

coprinus mushrooms spring up in a downpour.
I think of what drops from us and must then
be moved to make way for the next and next.
However much we stain the world, spatter

it with our leavings, make stenches, defile
the great formal oceans with what leaks down,
trundling off today's last barrowful,
I honor shit for saying: We go on.

Hunger Strike

Actually, milk strike. Elliot has fallen off the milkwagon (or did he climb aboard?).

Over the last two weeks, the child has forgotten how to eat anything except milk. He also eats hot dog. And the occasional dried blueberry or Cheerio. I admit that he will also wipe a little yogurt on his lips from time to time, but I honestly think it's done more in the spirit of decoration than anything else.

We are brought low.

We stand before you as the same proud people whose cosmopolitan kinder formerly grazed on, let's see . . . pad thai. Hummus -- he ate it straight! Organic peanut butter right off the butter knife (the way I also like it). He would work his way through a bowl of plain unsweetened whole-milk yogurt with Uncle Sam's breakfast cereal sprinkled in it, flax seed and all, for godsakes! That's some sophisticated business right there. Most adults won't eat that.

What the hell happened?

Even peas. He loved peas. Now he will sometimes consent to put one (1) in his mouth. But then, about two seconds later, he reaches into his own craw with a rather grim look and plucks the unmolested pea right back out, sets it on the tray, and looks around for the milk.

It doesn't help that the pediatrician blandly advised us (some months ago) that Elliot should probably have no more than about four cups of milk or so per day, so as not to spoil his appetite for solid foods. Well so much for that. What now, Mr. Genius Pediatrician? What you got? My boy stares down a spoonful of food like it was yesterday's trash.

Wrestling and Chattering

Here's a little video of me (B) and how I relate to Elliot. We wrestle. Also, we chat.

Here, you'll find us chatting very, very early in the morning, on a variety of topics. I must warn you: unless you are a really big fan of Elliot, or a professional linguist, you may find the chatting a bit boring! Sorry. I just happen to think it's AWESOME.

Kids are weird.

Which can be -- if you are a little weird yourself-- kind of vindicating!

One of Elliot's games for the past month or so has been to lie down on the floor. Sometimes on a pillow -- other times, just right on the floor. Sometimes he goes "Ohhhhhh", and if he does, we'll pipe up and say "Ohhhhh" right back to him. Somtimes I'll rub his back. Maybe we tickle him and he hoots.

If he's left alone, he sort of lies there for a moment, and then he gets back up. Maybe he tries a different position. Maybe he goes off to stick his finger up Ada's nose at that point. Who knows. It's the mysterious lying-down game. Blink and you might miss it. Alternately, it might go on for twenty minutes.

Behold Elliot's most recent innovation on the lying-down game: the dishtowel blanket gambit.

P.S. This is exactly what it looks like just before Elliot gives you a smooch.

Reading Matter

Okay, you all must excuse me while I brag on my Dad for a minute. His new book is out!

As if this weren't exciting enough in itself, the book has a very special dedication:

To Elliot, who is the becoming of our future. May he have a long and wonderful journey, filled with chocolate and love.

Congratulations to dad--and let me recommend this book to you, if you are looking for an introduction to process philosophy! And, I must say, if you are reading this, you might very well be interested in an introduction to process philosophy, because it has a lot to say about parenting. Process philosophy, as I understand it, is partly about thinking about the relationship between "being," which is to say, being something and staying that way, and "becoming"--that is, being something that is changing all the time. If you are the parent of an infant, you'll understand the importance of this idea right away, but here is how my dad maps it out in his introduction:

Life is change. I remember Sarah, now thirty, when she was five. What a joy it was to hold her on my lap then--to hug her, read to her, and tickle her. I will never again be able to hold the five-year-old Sarah on my lap. But that is the price I must pay to have the thirty-year old Sarah be married to Brandon and give birth to Elliot. I will never again teach the six-year-old Mark to swim, but that is what must happen for the twenty-five year old Mark to be living in Argentina with Abbey, making me laugh out loud with his travel blog. Life is simply change--becoming and perishing. The joy of life is in the journey.

This book is a naturalistic view of process philosophy, but Dad has also written a guide to process theology, if that is more up your alley. An awful lot of people in my life have told me how much this book meant to them, after they read it with a church group or wherever, and you might like it too.

I must also tell you that in the same package with Dad's new book came a bundle of cookies, made by my mama, who every valentine's day sends me heart-shaped sugar cookies with pink frosting. Elliot was interested in dad's book, but dad will understand Elliot's wisdom in choosing a cookie, rather than the book, to console himself with when he fell down and whopped his head. These cookies are just as articulate as anything I've ever written or read, and mama, let me tell you that they are speaking to me loud and clear.

Back to our regularly scheduled program!

I would just like to say that when  you are trying to multitask and get the bebe to daycare while also walking the dog, and it is snowing, and you get the stroller going one way through a huge slushy puddle, then IT IS VERY STRESSFUL when the dog decides, all of a sudden, to bolt in a completely different direction.

There is a woman in our neighborhood who is always walking her (larger than Ada) dog while pushing a stroller and accompanied by two other small children.  She always seems like a Very Angry sort of person.  On mornings like this, I understand why.

the politics

To try to minimize the intrusions of political ruminations into Elliot's blog, this is just a link to a few pre-super-tuesday thoughts.

--s