As you may remember, I work for Writers in the Schools. This week we are hosting our annual Young Writers Reading Series. Here is a video (48 seconds) of Raphael, age 6, from last year's reading. His poem is called "Explaining Colors."
click here to see the original post with text of the poem
Last week Marcia and I led a poetry activity with Pearl's preschool class in celebration of National Poetry Month.
We were a little hesitant about this venture because neither of us has experience in teaching this age group. Also the fact that the kids range in age from 3-7 years old made us a little anxious.
Our trepidations turned out to be unwarranted, however. The children had great fun coming up with their own line for the collaborative writing project we chose for them.
We divided the class into two groups to do the writing (dictating, really) on long rolls of paper. Then each group presented what they had written to the other. We'd defined a poem as a gift made out of words, so this fit into the plan nicely. They laughed and cheered for every line.
When we were done, we combined the two banners filled with words, and the class poem was born:
Olivia is a butterfly flying to a leaf to lay her eggs.
Charlotte is a unicorn flying and playing with her friend.
Liliana is a horse eating hay on the farm.
Alex is an ant biting a kid.
Gillian is a dragonfly flying in the sky close to the roses.
Angela is a blue butterfly laying eggs on a rubber tree.
Zachary is a lion eating a zebra in the forest.
Lucia is a baby zebra playing with her mom and then sleeping.
Pearl is a cheetah running to a cave with hyenas.
Brandon is an elephant eating hay in Africa.
Charlie is a T-Rex laying eggs in the grass.
Jean Luc is a shark eating a fish in a secret hiding place.
Ana Sofia is a horse with a baby eating hay on the farm.
Thomas is a cat sleeping in a house.
Ryan is a silk worm hanging like a spider.
Jacob is a big horsey at the farm eating apples with raisins.
Sydney is a koala eating apples and bananas in a eucalyptus tree.
Ethan is a cheetah thundering after an antelope in the wild.
Anna is a happy baby unicorn stuck in a tree.
Jan is a monarch butterfly laying eggs on a man’s head!
After we finished, I rushed off to work. Marcia decided to hang around because Pearl didn't want to miss recess, her "favorite subject." Marcia said that as the kids played, they remained their animals, galloping and racing about. As the excitement grew, some of the kids began declaring to the children in the other class: I am a poem, I am a poem, I am a poem!
I mentioned a few weeks ago that Pearl's best friend was moving away. Today we heard from him (with his mom's help, of course) for the first time.
Hello Pearl,
I love you, I miss you. I have a lightsaber already.
how is the school going? what are you playing in the playground?
I am still in the hotel. I am having fun with my mom. I am playing tennis.
dfrt (I am done)
It was night time when we got in the airplane, everybody had to sleep for a little big and when we got there it was morning time. That's all.
Hugs,
Alex
Pearl wanted to write back immediately. Marcia dictated exactly what she said.
Alex,
I miss you so much. I'm playing lots of stuff with Liliana on the playground. We have played hyenas today. And Alex, I have missed you so much that I haven't wanted to go to school for a long time. We still go to the same school. Carrie is going to go to my school next year. We haven't gone to the zoo. I already had my birthday. I'm sorry that I didn't invite you. I'm having fun with my two mommies and my sister. We've been telling stories for a really long time and filling up my 100-page book. Alex, I love you soooo much that I don't want to play with Liliana sometimes. We wrote some things that I want to do when I'm mad, like have a fight with hyenas or get really intolerable or stomp around or do exercise or come up with ideas. Goodbye, Alex.
From Pearl, I love you.
And they're barely four.
[photo by bishop72 via flickr]
Sunday we went to a going-away brunch for our friends Cosmo and Cake. If you will recall, Cosmo and Carrie are one day apart in age and were born in the same hospital. They are, at times, accused of being twins. We will miss these friends.
The party was hosted by Chuck and Hank. We knew most of the people there. One of the strange things, though, is how many of the people there have blogs. Or is it strange? Do most of your friends blog?
Here's a story about our gang that appears in the May issue of OutSmart.
I enjoyed reading Ariel Levy's essay about her lesbian wedding featured in the Sex and Love issue of New York magazine. Levy does a nice job capturing the weirdness of gay weddings, both for the great aunt Mildreds of our lives and also for ourselves. Here's an excerpt:
"I am not a total idiot. I always had the sense to say no wedding cake, no officiant, no first dance, no here comes the bride, no Times announcement, and absolutely no white dress. Who are we kidding? And why? We just wanted a big, awesome party where everyone could meet and go bananas. It’s a special opportunity, you know: The only other time everyone you love will assemble in one place is at your funeral."
The humor of Levy's writing is uplifting. I came away from this essay thinking that if I had realized that "Here Comes the Bride" could be replaced with "Crimson and Clover," maybe I would have pushed Marcia a little harder in the direction of weddingville. Read the whole essay here.
Do you remember in May when an essay I wrote was published in a book by Beacon Press? It's called Confessions of the Other Mother: Nonbiological Lesbian Moms Tell All, edited by Harlyn Aizley. Well, that book was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. But even better than that, it is a finalist.
The Awards Ceremony will be on May 31st in NYC. You can see the complete list of finalists here.
There is a Jewish proverb, "A mother understands what a child does not say." I thought this was true until I had children of my own.
I'm having a head-achey time of it, and I'm not so sure what to write about this week. Please ask me a question to give me some direction.
As a blogger and as a writer, I have met face-first the empty slate that stays and stays that way. Some folks call it writer's block. Today, however,
I am inspired by psychoanalyst Adam Phillip's essay on inspiration. Here's an excerpt:
....And yet inspiration is a word no one is shy of using now, even though they are not that keen to explain how it might work. It is the kind of magic that people like to believe in, perhaps especially now, in a culture where money can buy virtually everything else of value, and science and technology can create or invent the things we most need. Inspiration, in other words, is a kind of God-term; it refers to something we think of as essential but that we can't, or may not want to, understand. As Eliot suggests, it is like a visitation from something profound and incomprehensible. It reassures us, or at least reminds us, that some of the best things about us are beyond our control.
Whatever it is that feeds us our best lines - the gods or God, the unconscious or the genes, the class war - it is something we depend upon but cannot command. Like God's grace, inspiration doesn't respond to our need or our greed for it. It is not a resource we can exploit; and it doesn't look as if, at least as yet, science or technology can help us get more of it.
Source: Observer, March 12, 2006
Today I'm back to work after two weeks with the expansion family. Once again I want to tip my proverbial hat to you stay-at-home-moms. Having a "real" job is a whole lot easier.
It was really hard for me to write anything about the famiy while I was home. The words just weren't coming to me. Maybe I need a little distance from the scene, in order to figure out what I want to say.
Here's a picture of Carrie taken this past weekend. She's still wearing "preemie" pajamas, but she's filling them up more and looking healthier and happier.
I really like this editorial by Cooper Munroe so I've posted the entire piece from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Cooper is one of the DotMoms (and so am I). Especially after that irritating article published by the New York Times a few months ago, this essay is one that makes me cheer hurrah!
Sunday, July 24, 2005
Every parent should have a blog.
Even though nine months ago I had to Google the word to learn what one was, I have since found that blogging adds an extra, valuable layer to not only how I parent my four young kids but also how I see myself in that role.
A friend, Emily McKhann, suggested last November that since we don't live in the same city, but both love to write and would like to be more in touch, we start a blog together. After the Google search, which turned up interesting writing on many topics, including parenting, I agreed.
It was a perfect fit. Writing a blog -- also known as a web log -- offers what is often out of reach for me, and I would guess, many other parents: a place to notice and make sense of the ins and outs of the day-to-day of raising kids, and, simultaneously, a way to find real, like-minded people, in similar, child-rearing situations, from all over, who, more often than not, provide not only insight, but a compassionate, listening ear.
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Stacy Innerst, Post-Gazette Click illustration for larger version. |
There is a study I read recently that found one thing parents say they need to feel successful in child-rearing but rarely get (at least in satisfactory doses) is a support system that provides meaningful conversation and positive feedback.
So, if we work all day, or our friends, mothers, brothers or sisters work all day (or live in another time zone), then shuttle our children to activities all evening, and, for good measure throw in chores and community obligations, where do we find the time to have productive conversations on parenting, or any subject for that matter, with other adults, including our partners?
Julie Moos, managing editor at the Poynter Institute, a journalism education organization, and editor of DotMoms, a collective of "mom" writers, to which I contribute, points out that since we are a much more mobile society, we have less time to connect.
"We don't necessarily live where we grew up or where family is or friends are. There is a great deal of mobility in the workplace. It is our mobility that makes it increasingly difficult to find the company we need. Blogging is at our convenience, which is huge for people. You can create community in your own time," Moos said.
Twice a day the baby sleeps and, with the older kids in school, I am in nap lockdown with only our dog Otis for company. When I am finally out of the house talking with other parents, it usually goes this way: "What does Heidi want for her birthday? Did I RSVP?" So, when I get the chance, like nap time or nighttime, I post to our blog, Been There about subjects ranging from end-of-the-school-year craziness to Tom Cruise's rants, and within hours if not minutes, parents -- from around the world -- respond with funny and meaningful comments.
As Mindy Roberts, who writes the Mommy Blog and is also a DotMom, says, "In a blog, you not only get to compose your thoughts (hopefully with a glass of wine late at night), you get to do it in a stream without interruptions."
And, blogging is easy.
I am not new to the Internet and I have used it regularly for parenting information since our first child was born over eight years ago. But to me the parenting Web sites don't offer much "real" information. Chat rooms and message boards with their jargon and threads leave me confused. Blogging is not only accessible and something I can relate to, it is simple. It took less than an hour for Emily and me to set up our blog and, believe me, we are two ladies who don't know the first thing about HTML code.
Jay Allen, who writes The Zero Boss, said that although people tend to focus on blogging as a buzz word, it is just the latest technology people have found to connect. "I remember when I was growing up people mimeographing handwritten newsletters. Blogging is a tool that makes communication easy and you can ignore the technical stuff if you want to."
For me it is like visiting a big, fun, friendly neighborhood.
As my co-blogger, Emily, said the other day, "The most surprising thing to me when we started our blog is that participating in this community is so entertaining."
When Emily posted to our blog, "I'd love some help here. I'm feeling starved of initiative and want to interject more laughter and silliness into my day-to-day with the kids," Becki King, from the blog Adventures of a Nervous Girl, commented almost immediately. "First, please don't call Social Services on us. We're crazy, but harmless. My 5-year-old decided that our family members were all part of a spaghetti dinner: he is spaghetti, his 2-year-old sister is meatball, I (mom) am sauce, and dad is cheese. Periodically my daughter will look at one of us and say, 'Hey, Meatball!' and that person looks back and says, 'No, YOU Meatball!' I don't know why, it's not that funny, but it cracks us all up," she wrote.
I have also noticed that with the added, protective layer of the Internet, you can get into meaningful discussions without the typical small talk.
"Especially with some of the subjects we deal with on DotMoms, it can be easier to open up with the Internet as a kind of shield. It offers a way to express what is happening in your life and, if you can find a safe place to do that, it only helps. There is a free spirited-ness to blogging that allows people to connect on many levels," Moos said.
With that said, if all the people I communicate with through our blog and DotMoms lived in Pittsburgh, I would probably not cross paths with many of them. Blogging breaks down barriers and, in many ways, levels the field.
"There is something about communicating via the Internet that allows people to be more real, more raw, more truthful and hopefully more helpful and supportive. The person is offering you help and or advice without noticing your shoes, your stroller, your choice of diapers, what you feed the children, or how well you are minding them. I don't think it substitutes for human contact, but I do think it can cut closer to the bone in many ways that polite interactions cannot," Roberts said.
Blogging also gives parents usable information fast.
When Amy Milgrub Marshall, a DotMom, wrote a post asking for advice about how to get her toddler to sleep in his own bed, she received 18 long comments back. Soon thereafter, she told me, her son was sleeping on his own.
I had to laugh the other day when on her blog Sharbean, Sharlene McKinnon posted a photo of a shrub and asked for help identifying it and she not only got a quick answer (pontentilla) from several people, but also suggestions on how to best care for it.
My husband likes Greg Allen's blog, www.DaddyTypes.com, because, among other things, Allen frequently posts locations of men's rooms with and without changing tables in Manhattan and elsewhere. To Allen's dismay, there are more withouts than withs.
There are naysayers, and Moxie. a New York City-based blogger who prefers not to use her real name, finds silly any negative assertions that parent blogging is vanity or luxury. "Parenting is a defining experience. Writing about it is nothing new, and writing about it in a funny or bitter way is certainly not new. My mom used to sit down at her manual typewriter and plunk out her thoughts about mothering -- she'd absolutely have had a blog if it had been an option. We need the contact, the validation that what we're doing is hard and dirty and worth it."
Being the mother to my four kids is the single most important thing I will ever do and the most valuable thing, ultimately, about writing a blog for me is that I am much more aware of the moments I have with them, and, in turn, am more aware of who I am -- and who they are -- in those moments.
The added benefit is that by going through the exercise of thinking through what occurs in a day and writing it down, I am also creating a permanent record of what life is like while raising them. If I did not have a few hundred people stopping by every day to see what Emily and I are writing about, I likely would not be chronicling in a diary or a scrapbook about the maelstrom of Otis and a snake in a fight to the death (Otis won) or the time our 3-year-old asked the dentist if we could take home the laughing gas.
Someday, I hope, my blog will tell my kids much more about themselves, and about the woman who raised them, than any photo album ever will.
Today you can read something I wrote about storytelling at the DotMoms site. By the way, DotMoms was recognized by Time Magazine as one of the 50 Coolest Web Sites of 2005!
Last week I posted a question about what you include and exclude in your blog, and several of you explained that you keep more than one blog.
Actually, I maintain two blogs myself. The Other Mother is about my experiences as a parent, and my other one, Big Window, is about literature, poetry, and art. My sense is that most people read one or the other of them, not both. [There are a few notable exceptions, however, such as my friend Shannon.]
So, here's the question for today. How many blogs do you keep? How do you divide the content between them?
I started blogging nine months ago. Like so many things, it has turned out to be different from what I originally expected. I thought I would be writing primarily for my family, and yet I have inadvertently discovered a new group of friends that includes moms, activists, and other mensches. Here is a question that is primarily for the bloggers but as usual, anyone is welcome to play.
What topics do you write about on your blog and where do you "draw the line" in terms of your subject matter?
Most recently the thing that brought this to my mind was a comment by Ange. She was saying that one thing she enjoys about my blog is that it is very upbeat. It was interesting to think about that because in our family we have been having some serious issues lately concerning our dog/baby relationship. I've been extremely concerned about it, but I haven't mentioned it once. But Ange is right. In my blog I tend to present what's positive and funny. Maybe I am a cheerleader for lesbian parenting?
Although theoretically a blog could be a place for all things, in truth it rarely is that. We land on some idea of mission the blog will serve, partly based on our personal needs, partly based on the response of the audience. I would be interested in discussing how your blog serves you and others and how that has changed over time.
Today on the DotMoms blog, you can read something else I wrote about motherhood.
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