Launcher book

I was casually skimming through a book when a sentence caught my attention. The author mentions that an individual's love for reading stems from one or two books. This can happen in various stages of life -from childhood to adulthood. Got me chewing my lip..
I can definitely think back to the first books I've read and enjoyed so much that I had to keep reading the entire series. My launcher books would be Enid Blyton's Famous Five series. Growing up I used to absolutely loathe history until I started reading Tintin and Asterisk comics.
My older son's launcher book was The Foot Book by Dr.Seuss. In fact, I can still remember all the words in order!. He also loved a four box set of the Busytown books by Richard Scarry esp., the Firefighter's Busy Day.
As for my younger one, he never let us read to him as a baby, would grab the book out of our hands and make up a story from the pictures. But one day he discovered Tintin and Asterisk. He was hooked! Now he is a voracious reader, appreciating the difficulty in reading Huck Finn in original, willing to work at it.
Comic Book to Classics is not an impasse. I still long for an Banana sundae a la Archie comics while reading Breton - although I do not really like the complicated tastes in a sundae nor the complicated images in Breton (hopefully my prof is not reading this!).
To me this illustrates how serendipitious reading can be. As parents, we can only expose the children to a variety of books and let the children take it from there.

Reading and writing

Back from a long break. After a tough class, I almost swore off of reading and writing. But old habits die hard. I've written on many topics just in my head, now that I sit down to blog, I have memory loss. Guess I didn't put it on autosave ;)
Anyhow.. school's winding down here. Summer reading begins. We always diligently sign up at the local library for summer reading, but so far have never filled out the log -obviously nothing to turn in. Why not? you ask..
My kids have never willingly written anything. They love to read and I've been able to discuss with them some of the few I've also read, but when asked to write, it will somehow get set aside. At school, most assignments have a scoring rubric. The older one follows it to the T! "It only says two sentences, you know! no extra points for an extra sentence!".
My lecture that a rubric is a helpful tool to help cover all important aspects of the topic is met with a silence from the sofa - the kids have long disappeared at the beginning of my sentence!
So, I gave up. My excuse, writing is to put down original thoughts on a subject. Children do not have enough experience to draw from their frame of reference to write about a book. They may enjoy the work, but do not have much to say about it.
Plus today's writing in a business world is all powerpoint using bulleted entries anyway..
Sour grapes?

Children Learn What they Live

The parent Checklist made me think of this poem. I first read this poem posted on the fridge at one my friend's house several years ago. I really liked the words in it. It is often difficult to remember to follow, but the words make a lot of sense.

Children Learn What They Live

If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.

If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.

If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.

If children live with ridicule, they learn to be shy.

If children live with jealousy, they learn what envy is.

If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.

If children live with tolerance, they learn to be patient.

If children live with encouragement, they learn to be confident.

If children live with praise, they learn to appreciate.

If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.

If children live with acceptance, they learn to find love in the world.

If children live with recognition, they learn to have a goal.

If children live with sharing, they learn to be generous.

If children live with honesty and fairness, they learn what truth and justice are.

If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and in those around them.

If children live with friendliness, they learn that the world is a nice place in which to live.

If children live with serenity, they learn to have peace of mind.

With what are your children living?

-Dorothy L. Nolte

Visit to a museum

DC is famous for the museums - a veritable treasure trove. I see folks from all over the world on the metro really excited to visit the museums in DC, all gratis thanks to the Smithsonian.
I've dragged the kids to a few over the years - a feeling of guilt to live so close and not take advantage of the opportunity drove me to cajole, threaten and bribe them into submission. Granted, the first thing we do is to visit the cafeteria, followed by a room and a half of reading and admiring, then we head outside, frisbee in hand!! Figure something is better than nothing.
The past year, my older one has found his voice.. as in "Forget it!" (My bleating of "we never talked like this to our elders" fell on deaf ears).
So, this year, the spring tourists came in with children (happy faces from what I could tell) in tow.. I came home and called a meeting with the kids and told them how much people spend on hotels and airfare to be able to visit some musuems.. Now I had the older one's attention. He wanted to maximize his return.. but can he put up with boredom just to take advantage of a vacation savings?! I could see his resolve wavering a little..
We made a bargain, we'd only visit two wings and then they'd get their ice cream and frisbee, plus lunch at the cafeteria!
In the musuem, I gave the older one the camera. He went through and photographed every item in the two wings and agreed to do another museum to boot. Of course, he got his food. He didn't even complain when we got home later than planned and he missed half his baseball practice!
I guess he just needed to see the museum through the camera's viewfinder!

Parenting checklist

I recently read someplace about a parenting checklist/rules for effective parenting.. I will try to recall a few that got impinged on my brain.

1. Make peace with your child's personality and accept the child for who (s)he is.
(big one for me)
2.Make it a point to listen to your child. (practice what you preach and they will reciprocate).
3.Make one-on-one time with your child - give it 100% attention, do not take that phone call or check your email one last time before you begin. I know I will never get to my appointment with my child once I pick up my laptop.
4.Never let your child hear your talk negatively of him/her to another (even to your spouse).
5.Don't compare your child with a friend/brother/sister

Feel free to add your own..

Kite festival

It is an annual ritual with us. Mother and children pack up kites and a picnic lunch and head off to the Mall to attend the kite festival. Early spring the Smithsonian sponsers the annual kite festival on the capital Mall (a gorgeous piece of grassy area between the museums, stretching from the tidal basin to the capitol).
It is usually cold, but sunny and windy, ideal kite weather.
Thousands of people are gathered with kites of all kinds and shapes, from simple kites from the drugstore (ours) to splendid 3-D ones.
They also have kite shows and competitions in various categories. Cherry blossom festivities are also on during this time.
My kids absolutely love it and look forward to this day. Kites get tangled every now and then.. the kids put their heads together with the other party and sort it out. By the end of the day, the kites are torn, string knotted up here and there. We get hot pretzels and ice cream from the street vendor and wearily head back home negotiating the metro crowd, a few more happy faces -seldom seen during weekdays.
This year, I got two kites for the kids each and D picked up some extra string a few days early. But of course, one had to be opened right then and flown in the backyard and S lost one to the wind, string holder and all.. A held on tight apparently. The morning of the festival D got one more for S since he didn't have a spare.. The idea was to replace the torn one with a new one.
But that didn't happen. The kids flew their kites till they were in tatters with two new unopened ones in the bag. We walked around, flying some more near the monument. walked over to the tidal basin to admire the cherry blossoms. Lunched and Snacked. Headed home near sunset.
Kids promised each other that resume kite flying once they got home.

As we were walking to the metro, a mother/son came up to me and asked if she could buy a kite somewhere on the mall. I told her I didn't think so and that we'd brought ours from home.The older one had wandered away so I figured I'd check with S to see if he'd be willing to give up his tattered, but still good, kite - so that he could use the new one at home.
To my surprise, he didn't want to -saying I could give away the new one if I wanted to, but that the tattered one was his BEST kite.
go figure! Mommy's protective instincts were all wrong.
As usual, we now have notebook paper kites in every room -in preparation for next year?? or rather prolonging this year!!

Crow eating a stolen crispy vada

On my way back home last nite, there was a woman with two little boys - ages probably around 5 and 2. There were few people in the bus since it was late. The older boy asked me if I had a basketball in my backpack, to which I said:
"No, I have books"

He: I don't believe you, can I see..

Me: Sure.. I opened my backpack and gave him the "Trials of Life: Natuaral History of Animal Behavior" with lots of pictures of animals.

The kids were pleased and thumbed through the book, involving his mother and occasionally asking me some questions as to what those animals were..

We came upon a picture of a wolf eating a deer in its mouth. The kid asked his ma

Mammy, why is he eating the deer?

Mommy looked up, slightly surprised to see my face, while saying: "because that is his food.. Mmm.. deliciouso!"

The kid, reconciled, said: "because he is hungry mommy"

I realized the mother had seen my face reflect a level of disgust at this picture. And then I realized I used to cherish the memory of a mental picture of a crow eating a vada so much.

Mmm.. crispy vada fried by the old woman and sold on the roadside.. (although, it was something we were never allowed to enjoy!)

Promised myself that I would make some (no, a lot) crispy vadas soon for my kids (without the guilt) real soon!