Our New Neighbors

Big news in Bear Country, Fans: robins are building a nest in one of the three lilac bushes in the backyard.  It is the one nearest the stairs off the deck that Joe is fond of clambering up.  (He has been admonished not to do so for the time being.)  We spied the nest while we dined al fresco Friday evening before the next system of thunderstorms rolled in.  We then peered at the goings on through our binoculars, though La Familia Robin has selected a secluded spot in which to build their nest so we didn't see too much.

Earlier that evening, Julie and the bambini had had to walk to get the red car from where Julie had ditched it at school pick-up time. (Joe was hosting a friend for a post-school play date so Julie had had to pick-up on foot and didn't have time to drop the car at home.  School releases at 3:50pm and it's a deadbeat-parent-feeling-inducing ghost town by 4pm.)  She'd ditched the car on the street where Joe's friends Sophia and Grant live.  Joe had commented that Sophia and Grant were neighbors.  Julie had said we were their neighbors, too; we just lived one block over and up.  Joe had said, basically, that yeah, we weren't neighbors like Sophia and Grant.  Julie had forgotten she was talking with Mr. Literal.

Anyway, after the initial excitement of sporting the nest had subsided, Joe glanced up at Julie and slyly said, "They're our neighbors."

Successories

One of Clara's more charming traits is her love for accessories.  She will change outfits multiple times a day, try on Julie's jewelry when allowed, and otherwise accessorize at will.  Recently she was in Target and spied some eyeglasses that she wanted, and her mother, an accessory aficionado herself, obliged.  Also in rotation these days is the balaclava we bought her for skiing, which she was wearing one day while watching tv.  And of course skiing provides many accessories, like goggles and the such.  

Winter Vacation

The family took a long weekend winter vacation to our now familiar Grand View Lodge over Presidents Day.  It was one of the few bitterly cold weekends unfortunately, so outdoor activities were reduced, but we had a nice time and just enjoyed being away.  We hit our favorites: Ganleys for lunch, Bar Harbor for a nice dinner and Zorbas for a ridiculous kitschy dinner.  The girls hit the spa, Clara got very nice aqua polish on her toes.  Also staying at the Lodge was a group of 97 families on a Christian retreat, so it was busy.  But the highlight was while we were pretending to ice fish Julie scoped out a dog sled operation also on the lake.  It turned out it was an activity for the Retreat, but Julie appealed to their Christian kindness and they offered to do an extra lap with us.  So we ran over, quickly hoped on two sleds attached to a team of about 10 dogs and did a short lap on the frozen lake.  It was a great experience in a beautiful setting, but no time for pictures unfortunately.  

A Peregrine Falcon Adventure

Fans by now likely know that Joe's favorite animal is the fastest in the world - the peregrine falcon. So when we heard of a special program for the opening of an exhibit all about the successful reintroduction of the peregrine falcon at the Bell Museum (also where Joe did some summer camps) we knew we would be first in line.  

The festivities were kicked off by a special talk by the founder of the Raptor Center and Peregrine expert, Dr. Pat Redig. The kids were forewarned that it might not be kid focused but they had to see it through. And they were excited for it, claiming front row seats. What we did not bargain for was a 90 minute lecture. Amazingly the kids stayed in their seats and mostly held it together. Unfortunately they absorbed about 1% of what they heard.  

But we weren't done there!  We spent another two and a half hours exploring all things raptors. First there were a kestrel, a bald eagle, and a peregrine falcon on display. There was the exhibit itself where the kids made peregrine falcon puppets and Ted read more about the bird. Then there was a live raptor demonstration where a great horned owl swooped over our heads. And the finale was dissecting owl pellets, the bones from which were carefully packed up for home by Joe. 

Clara was not as enraptured by it all as Joe, but she hung in there and retained a lot of the information thrown at her over the four hour adventure. 

Julie wasn't able to join us for the visit, so we may have to go back another day to show her everything!

Fall fun

This was MEA week, which for the non Minnesotans is the statewide fall break on Thursday and Friday. Julie stayed with the kids and took them to the Kiddywampus art studio on Thursday and rented Cinderella to watch on Friday morning. Ted came home for lunch on Friday so the whole family could go to the zoo. It was a beautiful Fall day to see big cats (Joe's mission) and Bison (Clara's mission).  We also got to play on a new play area where the kids showed off their climbing skills. The coolest thing was getting to walk in the bear's habitat while it is being renovated following a minor (!?!) incident a couple months ago of a bear breaking a viewing window.

On Saturday the kids raked some leaves so they could play in the pile. Clara was particularly looking forward to getting buried.  We ended the day at the annual Halloween event at the Westwood Nature Center.  Joe , Clara, Darby and Lilly tried all the games to win prizes and took Mother Nature's Trail to visit the animals. Joe's costume is a Wild Kratts bat, and Clara's is a witch. After last weekend's abnormal hot weather we are feeling like proper Fall again and doing proper Fall activities. 

Nature Weekend

This past weekend was awash with nature. It started with an impromptu trip by Ted and Joe to Westwood Nature Center while Clara was at a birthday party.  Joe identified and recorded his bird sightings:

The boys ate a picnic lunch along the trail  and stopped in the Center to check out some snakes and lizards.  

An even bigger adventure happened that night when the whole family went on a Full Moon walk at our favorite Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden. No sooner did it start then the wild turkeys flew up into the trees to roost for the night. Who knew they did that?! It was quite a sight to see them take off. Soon after, we heard the owl calling out and after a bit it took off across the park and into a large tree that sat just beneath the (mostly) full moon. Another fascinating site.  We walked further, up to the prairie and caught great views of the last daylight and the moon lighting up the fall foliage. Beautiful.  

The next day Ted took the kids to the park where poking a stick in the lake and finding the ducks are important rituals. 

In all it was a very inspiring, calming, and beautiful weekend in nature together. 

A Heart's Sky

The day after Christmas we all caravaned downtown to see various sights, including the Neopolitan crèche and the Thorne Rooms at the Art Institute.  Once in the museum, our route to the crèche took us past Georgia O'Keefe's Sky Above Clouds IV.  Seeing this painting was an unexpected delight as one of our favorite books is a somewhat impressionistic biography of Georgia O'Keefe for children.  Birdie considered the painting for a bit and Julie's heart caught at the sight, thinking of Our Birdie always at her drawing and coloring.

For Christmas, Clara asked Santa Claws (as she charmingly addressed her letter) for a radio-CD-case of her own.  She now has a small boom box of her very own--and the Kidz Bop 30 CD.  She has already been seen rocking out on top of a bed in front of a mirror clad in only her underwear and the chocolate brown faux fur vest that Grandma Connie got her for Christmas.  It made the heart, if not catch, smile.

Chances are Our Birdie will not have her art hanging in a museum one day or sell out arenas with her act.  Time will reveal her talents and that at which she likes to work, and what skies her heart will seek.  But with any luck, she'll see and be seen, listen and be heard, and she'll keep pausing to look up, to draw and color, and to sing and dance.

Good Thing

Fans.  Hello.  We are back after our longest hiatus since this chronicle began.  We have missed the chronicling, and you.

As is our usual practice after we have gone radio silent, we just plunge back in to what is unfolding at the moment.  We come to you from Wisconsin through which we are traveling by car, having spent Christmas in Illinois with Grandma Connie and Grandpa Charles, and Aunt Kate, Uncle Scott, and Cousin Nick who flew in from Pennsylvania.

Birdie is in her Santa hat tucked up against her Ariel-shaped pillow.  She has been softly singing to herself (this much remains unchanged), but she's all sung out--for the moment.

Joe is snuggled up against his Thomas the Tank pillow pet, reading Code of the Clans, a companion volume to the Warriors series.

Here, we pause to tell you that the warriors of the Warriors series are likely not what sprang to mind when you read that sentence, Fans.  Rather, these warriors are feral cats, arrayed in clans--not tribes.  (Julie recently asked Joe what was happening with Lighteningheart's--Fierceheart's?--tribe and he said, "Umm, clan?  Tribe!" and then proceeded to giggle himself silly for several minutes.)  There are no fewer than six subseries about these cats.  That means there are six Warriors book with a number one on the spine.  You have to do some research on the interwebs to know where to begin if, say, you are requesting the first few from the library.

The bambini have one more week of winter break.  For the first time, they will be spending the bulk of it at home, with Julie, who recently resigned her position at the law school at which she worked.  Last night Joe commented, "Good thing Mommy switched jobs."  (At the moment, she has a part-time--temporary--job reading applications for a college which she does from home.)  Joe's comment was really nothing more to him than an offhand, understandably self-centered--or, more accurately, child-centric--statement of fact.  But Julie was struck by it.

Her decision to resign was, of course, complex, and, in many ways, difficult, even if she feels certain it was also right. It can be easy to lose sight of the good, and the good still yet to be realized, when one is getting comfortable with Uncertainty and its sometimes companion Anxiety, ushered in by such a change.  What Joe said reminded Julie of the importance of keeping Perspective close, and its boon companion Resiliency.  (Could resiliency be any other kind of companion?)  They can be there, too, helping Change reframe the scene to make more room for Good.  So it is that Julie will spend this next week with the bambini.  Good thing.

Office worker

Our sweet girl has a wonderful imagination and commits to her inventions.  A recent activity is to work on her computer she makes out of paper. A folded sheet of paper makes a nice little laptop. She has made several of these computers in the past few months and she is able to whip one up pretty quick. This model has a mouse which is a folded up piece of paper taped shut. In this picture she is typing on the keyboard, intensely focused on her composition.

Similarly, she also enjoys writing in her journal or making shopping lists.  Her writing consists of scribbled lines, but she always dutifully fills the page with her lines of prose.

Birdie Goes to Kindergarten

Brigade. Brigade! Birdie went to kindergarten today. She said it was "great, great, great!!!" She punctuated this exclamation by throwing both her arms up over her head with each great.  She played some disco alphabet. She listened to The Kissing Hand. She visited the library. She colored. (Joe has already said that he thinks Clara might be a better artist. There might be no might about that, Fans.)

There is no might about it that the day was made easier by the presence of two of Clara's KinderCare classmates in her room. One of them also walked to school today so Clara had a familiar face next to her while lined up against the brick wall by the school's enterence waiting for Mrs. Dvorak to come up with her students who'd taken the bus. It's at that point that the walkers join the stream toward Mrs. Dvorak's room. The buses were running a little late on this first day of kindergarten, so there was plenty of time to stare at Clara and hold back tears. She was there for such a long time--until suddenly, she wasn't. She was off! She was off. Julie was the only one who cried. No doubt no one is surprised by this.

You will all recall that Clara said she was not scared to meet new people! She just loved us so much. So there.  As it turns out, it might be a little hard to talk to friends we haven't met yet. Clara allowed as much just after she'd been tucked in tonight. She talked only to the two people she already knew. But plans have been laid! Longtime readers will recall that Joe had a plan on his second day: to ask someone to do something specific, such that if he or she said no, Joe could be all check you later as he dashed off to do it. Clara has the same plan. The alternative but not mutually exclusive strategy is to tell a friend-we've-not-met-yet that she likes her dress/skirt/shoes/hair/whatever, and see where it goes. Julie reminded Clara to be sure to say yes if someone asked her to play. Clara looked at Julie and said very matter of factly, "It's not hard when someone asks me to play."  Point taken, Brigade, point taken.  Birdie. She'll tell you how it is. No might about it.  That's our girl.  Our kindergartener!

Madonna imitation.

Birdie Gets Ready For Kindergarten

Our Birdie, meanwhile, will go to her first day of kindergarten on Thursday. This afternoon, we had a conference with her teacher, Mrs. Dvorak, who our longtime readers will no doubt recognize as Joe's kindergarten teacher as well.

We were so proud of our kindergartner-to-be! She answered all of Mrs. Dvorak's questions about what she liked to do, and what we like to do as a family, and what else she wanted Mrs. Dvorak to know about her. When Mrs. Dvorak asked us if there was anything we wanted her to know about Clara, Julie said that Clara was a little apprehensive--which she un-fancied to scared for Clara--to meet new people, at which point Birdie broke in and said--with an eye roll!--"I'm not scared! [eye roll] I just love you so much." Oh. Oh! Mrs. Dvorak allowed us a moment to collect ourselves after that announcement. It was so heart-stoppingly Birdie: tender, but independent--with a little bit of attitude.

After we left Mrs. Dvorak's room, Clara said she wanted to see the gym. So we headed down a floor to the gym where we met one of the gym teachers, Mrs. S. Clara asked if the gym was just the floor, or if there were toys--"equipment," she then quickly corrected herself--!!! Mrs. Dvorak has a Fancy Nanacy fancy words poster in her room now, waiting to be filled. We think Birdie is going to love (adore, harbor deep affection for, hold dear, be over the moon for) this poster.

She is off her feed a bit, as Grandpa Charles would say--cranky and emotional. Who can blame her? Thursday will be a big (huge, tremendous, momentous, epic) day. We will keep you posted.

Birdie tries out her assigned hook.

Our Hero Goes to Second Grade

Fans, Our Hero is a second grader. Today was his first day of the new school year. He was a pretty cool customer but not long before we all left the house to walk him over, did say, "This is the hardest part." For Julie, it came later, when she realized that the long leave-taking that is being a parent doesn't seem like it's really going to ever get any easier.

Joe's teacher's name is Mrs. Gamble. Her room is right next to Joe's first grade teacher's room. He was in Chicago with his Grandparents Trump on the day of the ill-timed meet the teacher event, so "right next to Mrs. Stolusky' room" and his new teacher's name were the two pieces of information we gave him to get him from the school's front door to Mrs. Gamble's room. He was game. But when it was upon him--after he'd walked in the building and s nearly to the stairs--he turned back, panic in his eyes, and said, "Wait. What's my teacher's name again?"

Julie admonished herself to let him be a risk taker--to force it!--but after she replied, "Mrs. Gamble," she asked one of the staff at the entrance if she could accompany him to his room. At the door to the hallway his classroom was off of, she tried again to let him go, pointing down the hall to Joe's room. But when Joe said, "Can you just come with me for, like, three seconds?" she caved again! We save risk taking for another day.

It was only moments later that he saw his friend Kathleen and introduced himself to Mrs. Gamble. The three second were up. Julie made her way back out to the sidewalk where Ted and Clara were waiting and tried to hold back her tears.

Five and a half hours later, he came out the same doors and said, "The first day was awesome." If you are wondering why, Fans, here is what Our Hero had to say: "One, no homework. Two, the work was easy and boring. Three, recess." Mr. Easy Peasy did not manage to bring home his take-home folder though. Perhaps he mistook it for the non-existent leave-at-school folder. So he may have some things as yet to learn. But how to meet the world with a happy heart, he seems to have down. Can we get a folder for that?

Shortly before leaving for school.  In case you cannot tell what Our Hero is doing, we will tell you that he is dragging the wagon along on a jump rope teether attached to his scooter.  Miraculously, it did not end in tears.

Not even when Clara hopped in wanting to be hauled around.

State Fair for Three

It has been two years since we were last at the State Fair.  Knowing Julie is not a big fan of it, Ted decided to take the kids himself to get their Fair fix. The weekend was terribly hot and humid, but on this, the last day of the Fair, the weather was perfect.  This time they took the express bus to the fair which was a very nice way to do it and avoid figuring out parking, plus it was like a Fair ride!

Upon arriving the trio headed for the animal barns which is our only must do activity.  Joe wanted to pet anything with four legs, while Clara mostly followed after with a quick pet.  If Ted didn't keep an eye on him Joe would have climbed into the hay and snuggled up with a 1,000 pound cow.  A new activity was to duck into the show arena which happened to have a barrel racing competition going on.  We watched for about 30 minutes and all were fascinated the entire time, the longest they have jointly paid attention to something for that long!

We kept the "try new things" game going with a trip on the water raft ride which got us pretty well soaked but again everyone had fun with it.

From there we walked around and got our requisite pronto pup, mini donuts and lemonade interspersed with some tractor sitting.  The line was ridiculous for cheese curds, so we missed out on that favorite.  But we got to take the gondola ride across the park and get our milk shake from the Moo Booth before heading for the bus. And that was our trip to the Fair!

For the Birds!

Ever since Joe was enrolled in A Bird's Eye View camp at the Bell Museum last summer, he's been pretty into birds. As many of his Fans know, he is into animals generally, but birds are of particular interest. So last summer, we got a bird feeder and hung it from a tree. In retrospect, we realize we probably fed as many squirrels as birds. This summer, we acquired another feeder for a different type of seed. The birds wanted nothing to do with it. Humph. Then one day, while The Birds were out and about, they stumbled into a store called Wild Birds Unlimited where they asked why no finches were coming to dine on their nyjer seed and were set straight: it gets stale easily and gets compacted when wet. They were given new seed and bought some silica. One evening and replinished seed later, we awoke to two pairs of finches darting about the backyard.

It's been an education, Fans.

But the squirrels continued to get the better of us. All of us have run them off looking like deranged maniacs. We spent one morning thinking we'd bested them, watching them slide down the shepherd's hook pole slicked with olive oil, but a few hours later, they'd figured a way to best us. Joe informed us that squirrels can jump five to six feet up in the air. So there you go.

All of this is why we are now the proud owners of a bird feeding "system," including a "baffle"--that black cylindrical object on the pool in the picture--which apparently baffles the squirrels. And baffled they have been!

Now that we've run off the squirrels, we've seen all manner of birds: cardinals, finches, chickadees, a downy woodpecker, and a bunch of gray birds and brown birds we've not yet identified. Together, they clear out the entire feeder on the left in the picture above--!!!!!

Which is why we had to find a bird feeder filler while we head off up North, as they say here, on summer vacation.

Catch you on the flip, Fans.

Birdie's Pre-K Graduation

Fans, our Birdie will not flit off to kindergarten until the Thursday following Labor Day, but her Pre-K class had its commencement ceremony the Thursday before last. We gathered for what will be the last time for a while at the St. Louis Park Junior High. The graduates appeared on the stage of the cafeteria in shiny red robes. Our Birdie was looking for us. When she finally spied us, she raised her hand in the briefest of acknowledgments and then went back to the busy of looking like a mature pre-K graduate. We wouldn't distract her! But, her new shoes would.  They were magenta pave if you will with black pave hearts. And underneath that shiny red robe was a new long dress so Birdie was feeling pret-tee fine. You only go around once. Might as well do it in sparkley shoes.

Mr. Mark said a bit about each student as he or she crossed the stage to Ms. Elyse to receive his or her diploma. Each child's classroom nickname was noted. Here is what he said about "Claire-bear":
"Another one of our classroom ambassadors, Clara is the first to befriend any new student, to help show them the ropes--and never the last to remind someone of the rules. A rule follower herself, Clara has been a delight to have in Pre-K all year, as she sets a shining example of positivity and kindness that will truly be missed. She'll be attending Susan Lindgren this fall."

Isn't that so lovely, Birdie Brigade?

Kindergarten. Here she comes! But not quite yet, thank goodness.