Fact v. Fiction

Christmas has come and gone, and we made it through another year without having to deal with "The Santa Question." However, listening to other people grapple with this question has made me realize that kids can't necessarily tell the difference between true stories and made up stories. So Wrigley probably thinks that all those people we read about in stories - Harold and his Purple Crayon, Peter in The Snowy Day, even Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel - are real people.

The same is likely true for the bedtime stories I tell Wrig. Over the past year at bedtime, I have probably told Wrigley 300 different crash stories - airplanes, trains, cars, farm accidents, penguin crash stories, octopus crash stories (you read that right - octopus crash stories) - and in each and every one an ambulance comes to the rescue. Lately, I've been telling stories about planes that get lost, end up in outer space, and crash into planets. On each different planet, the residents of that planet come to the rescue (or become part of the crash; we like big crashes in our family). On Mercury, the people look like silver strings. On Jupiter they have one eye, two noses, and three mouths. On Venus, their eyes are shaped like hearts. After a week or so of space crash stories, she has these various people memorized.

So: if, in the future, on some standardized test, the state asks her what the people on Mars look like, she'll know they have pink skin and yellow eyes (I just asked her that, by the way, and she does know). But if they ask her to tell fiction from non-fiction, she might struggle with that one.

Apparently, this means she's almost ready for her bachelor's degree.

Woo Hoo Oregon!

Dear George W:
Keep your paws off our blue state's rights.

NY Times Article
This is just patronizing
Scalia said the court's ruling ''is perhaps driven by a feeling that the subject of assisted suicide is none of the federal government's business. It is easy to sympathize with that position.''

I thought states' rights were a conservative value.

Dear Moderate Republicans and Dems:
If you consent to the Alito nomination, Dubya will have 4 in his corner for Executive Privilege.

Sip 'n Wash

Wrig very much enjoys inventing and naming things. For several days she'd drop what she was doing to suddenly run into the bathroom to both get a drink and wash her hands.

Here are some other pictures that have been up on Flickr for a while but not yet posted here:



(falling) Tree Pose


Father Daughter Dance

Bubble Wrap Wins!

Conversations You Won't Often Have with a Four Year Old from Arizona

D: Was it raining while your guys were playing outside?
W: It was ... it was ... Is drizzling lighter than sprinkling?
D: Um, yeah.
W: Then it was drizzling.

An Ending

We've made many many parenting choices along the way that I never knew we'd make or even have to think about. In general our philosophy is something like, "we'll do XYZ (breastfeeding, co-sleeping, no TV, etc...) until it doesn't work for any one of the three of us." This is better known by the phrase "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." For the most part this serves us well.

Over the past year Wrigley has been nursing first thing in the morning only every once in a while. Sometimes it was every day for a week, then not at all for a month, then every other day for a while. It has been sporadic. And often I'd ask in a surprised voice, "There still milk in there?" And Wrigley would tell me, "Oh, yes, still milk."

Until last week, when we had this conversation:
M: No milk? (I could tell.)
W: no, no milk... Why did your boos (you don't always get to pick the name of thing when you have a child!) stop making milk?
M: Well, I think that because you nurse just a little bit every once in a while, they stopped.
W: I don't think that is what happened. I think your boos don't like the food you eat, so they stopped.
M: Really?
W: No, I don't think they like tomatoes.
M: Tomatoes, huh? What do they like?
W: Green beans. Maybe a green bean sandwich. With turkey and cheese. Rice would be okay.

Mutt

This poem nips at my heels
like an ill-mannered pup,
but when I turn to grab him by the scruff
all I find is a whorl of air
and the tickle of canine perfume.

This poem pants in my ears at night,
licks my face when I wake,
whimpers, whines, and wags,
begging to be written.

But this poem will not come when I call.
When it is time to work, he is at play,
chasing squirrels or rolling in the compost.
This poem hates baths.

I search the woods and long grasses,
seeking out this unruly poem.
And when I return home,
empty handed, I can tell
he has been climbing all over the furniture,
lounging on the sofa,
tongue lolling and eyes glazed.

But he is gone,
and I have nothing left to write
but an impression in a cushion
and a pale tuft of fur.

Christie’s 2005 Booklist

Here is the whole list with most recently read on top. The bold are actually recommended, the rest are just okay. I deleted the ones I read but didn’t like, but for the most part, I’ve finally learned to put down books that aren’t worth reading. I took out the parenting books because I don't suspect anyone is really interested in those anyway.

Jane Eyre and Life at These Speeds (thank-you, Alice) are the big recommendations from this year.

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, Amy Krouse Rosenthal – good for short chunks of reading, but a little tedious by the end

Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi

Falling Angels, Tracy Chevalier

Devil in the White City, Erik Larson - Long and gruesome, but fascinating

The Bonesetter's Daughter, Amy Tan

Doing School, Denise Clark Pope – Interesting look at what motivates a small sample of successful high school students. Unfortunately should have been article length, not book length.

HP and the Half Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling

O Pioneers, Willa Cather

A Changed Man, Francine Prose – wish the rest of the book was a good as the first chapter, but worth reading anyway.

HP and The Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling

The Full Cupboard of Life, Alexander Mccall Smith

A Painted House , John Grisham - John Grisham without lawyers or conspiracies! Excellent for a quick vacation read.

Breakup, Catherine Texier – not recommended for my Mom or Grandmother, but for the rest of you, this was a brutal memoir of a relationship ending.

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte – okay, I couldn’t put this down for 200 pages.

Victorine, Catherine Texier

The Dark is Rising, Susan Cooper

The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck

In Summer, Jeremy Jackson

The Selected Stories of Patricia Highsmith

River King, Alice Hoffman

Maybe Baby, Tenaya Darlington

Life at These Speeds, Jeremy Jackson

The Nature of Water and Air, Regina McBride

Before You Know Kindness, Chris Bohjalian

The Land of Women, Regina McBride

The Rule of Four, Ian Caldwell

Sneak Peek to Winter Wit

Here is the message I emailed to folks whom we don't have snail mail addresses for to mail our annual Year in Review. I post the meaasage here because we don't have email for Alice or Susi and we're not sure about Christyn. So if you three check in here some time soon, email your address to asimchuk at yahoo.com.

Several years ago our annual Year In Review won the Oregonian's best holiday letter contest. In fact our letter was so great, they saw no need to ever run the contest again. We keep writing one anyway! This year's letter may put YOU in a position to win big, but we need your snail mail first. Act quickly to get in on this offer.