Art in the car port

Rob’s begun a little tradition of embarking on outdoor art projects with Will each weekend. They set up under our carport with wood, saws, hammers, nails, paints – whatever they need – and make an afternoon of creating something. Will has his own hammer and scrap wood that he goes to work on, and when he tires of that he runs around in the back yard. Come painting time, he sometimes gets to help too.

Here they are this past Sunday piecing together a wooden butterfly, which they painted and presented to our friends Brant and Carey, who are due to have a baby in just a couple weeks, at a surprise luncheon we had for them yesterday at Rob’s office.

The week before they made this frame (the dragonfly at the center is a sketch Brant did).

And before that they launched this spring’s outdoor art initiative with this flower painting on wood, which now hangs in the boys’ bathroom. Will was primary painter on the big flower in the corner; Rob followed with some major touch-ups.

Post script: Indoors this weekend, Will and I embarked on another piece of artwork that is Neanderthalishly crude by comparison. Here I did only the lettering (minus the Y – the one letter besides W, which Will offered to paint on the sign and the only one that we also needed to incorporate). The rainbow of colors is all Will. (Although I must admit that I am mostly sneaking this photo into the mix so that you can sneak a peek at what is in my mind one of the most beautiful of all sights – a full-term, stock-full-of-ready-to-be-born-baby belly.)

Watching The Business of Being Born

I finally got a chance to watch The Business of Being Born after writing this preview to a Columbus screening of the film (which I wasn’t able to attend). If you haven’t seen it, it’s available on Netflix now. I recommend it to anyone who’s ever had a baby, anyone who’s contemplating having a baby and anyone who’s ever known anyone who had or is contemplating having a baby. I guess that should cover everyone. It’s a really important look at how the United States leads the world in high-intervention, high-risk births that actually do more to endanger both mother and child – largely because convenience and profit are driving decisions about maternity care. (One jaw-dropping statistic cited in the movie and confirmed by this CDC Web site: Cesarean births in the United States have risen by 46 percent between 1996 and 2005.)

But it’s also just a beautiful journey through the whole process of bringing a baby into the world. Rob and I both got teary-eyed during moments of it as we relived our own birth experiences with Will and Owen in our minds.

There is nothing I have ever experienced that is at once as painful and difficult and as exhilarating and empowering as being fully in touch with your senses as you give birth to a baby. The women in this documentary are a testament to that. And I hope the film gives a few mothers out there the courage to believe that their bodies can handle natural childbirth and that the rewards are more than worth it.

Out with the old, in with the old

I remember a time, long before I had children, when I actually enjoyed shopping for clothes. Now, with my free time whittled to a fraction of what it once was, it’s about the last thing on my priority list. And when I’m shopping for kid’s clothes I’m acutely aware of just how quickly they’ll be outgrowing anything I buy. So I do almost all my shopping for the boys at consignment sales and thrift stores.

Luckily, I have friends who give us wonderful hand-me-downs and relatives who give Will and Owen the gift of nice new clothes here and there. But mostly when it comes to clothing Will and Owen, we get things second-hand. It’s a combination of my thriftiness, my laziness and my desire to recycle materials beyond soda cans and newspaper.

This year Will’s about to bust out of his springtime pajamas as we await next week’s Just 4 Kidz Consignments sale. (Why buy new ones when I can probably scrounge up something there?) I go to the bi-annual event every fall and spring with a list of Will’s dire needs and I usually get enough stuff to make it worth the trip. So if you live near Columbus and aren’t averse to getting stuff used, check out the details on this year’s sale here.

Post script: I only wish I could be as non-consumptive as my friends Brad and Jenn – who made a pact to buy nothing new (with the exception of perishable items and certain essentials like underwear and socks) for a year. In fact they stuck to the pact, and then decided it was so easy that they’re doing it again this year. Read about the pact on this June post from Brad’s blog (which is worth reading regularly).

And speaking of non-consumption, I kind of like the message behind this Simple Living Network web site, which (under the headline “Wake Up and Smell the Rebate) criticizes the recent economic stimulus package as the silliest sort of remedy for an ailing economy and suggests we'd all be better off if people focused more on saving and less on consuming.

Plant nurturing 101 -- Or: How to stop killing everything in your yard

Today’s Ledger-Enquirer includes my article about common plant diseases likely to plague your home landscape. So if you happen to be a person who likes to nurture plants alongside kids, you might want to check it out. If you’re not feeling very horticultural, you can just skip this post.

The Columbus Master Gardener’s will host a plant clinic from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the Columbus Botanical Garden where you can get help with ailing plants from your yard or just learn the names of any mystery species that have somehow landed in your landscape. Details are below.

To see images of some of the diseases discussed but not pictured in the article and to learn more management tips go here.

And below are three common landscape diseases that didn’t quite make the print edition list:

Disease: Leaf Gall
Commonly affects:Azalea, rhododendron, mountain laurel and camellia in the spring during wet, humid, cool weather.
Symptoms: Leaves are deformed, swollen and pitted and eventually white spores burst out of the leaf. The disease does not cause significant damage to affected plants.
Prevention/Tips: Before they release the spores, cut problem leaves out and remove them, along with any contaminated mulch from under the plant.

Disease: Botrytis Blight
Commonly affects: herbaceous plants likes pansies and geraniums
Symptoms: Masses of fuzzy, grayish-brown spores on thin black stalks develop on infected plant tissues under cool, moist, humid, cloudy conditions. The fungus commonly invades wounded or senescent tissue, such as fallen flower petals or other fresh plant residues. It can also invade healthy tissue in contact with infected residues.
Prevention/Tips: Deadhead plant material before fungus develops. Don’t over-water and don’t water at night.

Disease: Melting out caused by Curvularia
Commonly affects: Bermuda, Zoysia and Centipede grass
Symptoms: There are purple and brown lesions on the leaf blade and the turf generally thins. The fungus Curvularia is the causal agent of "melting out" disease.
Prevention: Water in the early morning and don’t over water. Increase air circulation by cutting tree branches back. Don’t apply high rates of water-soluble nitrogen in the spring. Irrigate turf deeply and as infrequently as possible


Plant Clinic Info:
When: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday (March 8)
Where: Columbus Botanical Garden, 3603Weems Road
Who: Hosted by the Columbus Master Gardeners
Cost: Free
Details: Bring plant specimens for identification or for help diagnosing or managing a sick plant. If you need a plant identified, bring a branch or division of the plant, not just one leaf. If your plant is sick, bring samples of affected areas enclosed in a plastic bag.
More information: Call 706-653-4200.

Will ponders childbirth

These sorts of conversations, where Will wonders about the various mysteries of the universe, always pop out of nowhere. One minute he’s eating a bite of cereal, the next he’s asking:

Why are boys born in women’s bellies too?

Do you mean you think boys should come from men’s bellies and girls should come from women’s bellies?

Yeah.

Hmmm. Well all babies come from women’s bellies. Only women’s bodies can have babies.

But my dad!

Nope. Daddy can’t have babies. I had you and Owen in my belly.

Well, I’m Ally’s dad and Ally’s dad had to grow a little baby in his tummy. And I have to nurse my baby too.

And so we find a way to compromise. Sure, most of the time it’s women who do the childbearing in my world. But if Will wants to mother his imaginary Ally, I’m happy to watch him defy the laws of nature and play the nurturer too.

Baby braves cold, mom gets whiney

I’m a little exhausted. We are now on day three of watching Owen fight a little cold with all his feverish might. Will picked up the cold and has been barely bothered by it, and passed it on to me and Owen, whose actual cold symptoms are mild but whose body yesterday turned up to about 103.5 degrees come mid-afternoon after the last round of Tylenol had worn off.

One of the disadvantages for the poor second kid is that he gets to inherit all the illnesses from big brother’s preschool that Will never got exposed to. We stayed almost completely healthy with Will for the first year of his life.

Owen’s trying to be a trooper, but he’s really only content when he’s sleeping or being held. And all weekend – whether it was daytime or night – he could only seem to catch 20-minute stretches of sleep before waking up with some form of discomfort (he also cut his top two teeth yesterday when his fever was at its peak). And I can't help but worry a bit, even over a little cold, when a baby gets feverish. At one point Saturday night I was so miserably tired that I started crying onto Owen as I sat up nursing him in bed (he wasn’t willing to lie down). I try not to complain too much when I’m sick, but when my kids get sick I become such a weepy whiner. (My dad asked me about Owen over the phone yesterday and I told him about our sleepless night. “It was AWFUL,” I said. So melodramatic.)

Rob, who spent a good bit of time rocking Owen back to sleep in the rocking chair, said it reminded him of those first few months with Will when we were pulling our hair out trying to figure out how to get him to sleep, rocking him, dancing him, patting him, lying with him.

So in the end, this little bout of illness is a reminder to me that I’m incredibly lucky that healthy Owen is such a laid-back, easy guy. If I’d had another stretch of sleepless months with infant Owen while trying to keep up with Will too, I’d probably be in therapy right now.

Last night Owen got some much more solid sleep and he’s cooled off a bit today so I’m wishing him back to health as he takes a nap that’s already stretched over half an hour.

Sweet restorative sleep.

Instilling a love of reading

My very fondest, clearest memories of reading as a child are housed within three books that I read with my mom: Little House in the Big Woods, The Diary of Anne Frank and Little Women. We’d sit together on the couch, taking turns reading to each other and it was just a wonderful experience diving into those books right alongside my own mother. I remember watching her cry at some moment in one of those books and being struck by how reading could move you to tears. I have no idea how old I was – probably somewhere in elementary school. (My dad read to me plenty too, by the way, but I think by the time I was getting into these chapter books it had become his role to read with my younger brother.)


Now as I think about how to cultivate a lifelong love of reading with Will and Owen I’m certain that I want to include those kind of extended shared reading sessions – long after they’ve graduated from picture books. As they head into grade school in a few years I’ll want to think more deliberately about how to keep reading something that each of them loves to do. (As a former English teacher, I know that many kids lose their zest for reading somewhere between toddlerhood and high school – whether their parents are readers or not.) So, for this article in today’s Ledger-Enquirer, I asked some local librarians and reading specialists for advice about how to foster a lifelong reading in children as they grow older. I also checked in with a national reading expert who warns that incentive reading programs, which are in widespread use in many elementary schools and middle schools today, may not be the best answer. (If your child is involved in Accelerated Reader or similar incentive-based reading programs, it's a reminder to keep the emphasis on reading for reading's sake, to discuss books rather than focusing on whether your child passes the test or gets points, and to avoid letting your child develop the attitude that if it's not an AR book that can earn him/her points, then it's not worth wasting time reading.) If you have an opinion about incentive reading programs and their value, please leave a comment below.

And, as you search for good books for your kids here are some resources:
Go to the American Library Association for lists of award-winning books. Click on Best Books for Young Adults, Caldecott Medal, Children’s Notables Lists, Newberry Medal, Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults, Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers, and more…


Go to boysreading.com for help, including high-interest fiction book recommendations, inspiring reluctant male readers to start reading. The target age group here is 7th to 12 grade.


Go to this Reading is Fundamental web site for a “Top 25” list of books for infants through 9-year-olds. from lisa stephens best books infant to 9


Go to this Reading is Fundamental web site for a “Top 25” list of books for kids ages 10 and up.

And be sure to link to the Ledger article above for book recommendations for kids from pre-K through high school from Richards Middle School librarian Lisa Stephens and Columbus Public Library teen librarian Bridgin Boddy.

Below are Stephen Krashen’s comments on Accelerated Reader in full:

"Briefly:Accelerated Reader contains four components: lots of books, time to read, tests of what is read, and prizes for points earned on the tests. There is a great deal of research showing that providing access to books and time to read has a strong positive effect of literacydevelopment. What we don’t know is whether adding tests and prizes helps. Accelerated Reader doesn’t help us, unfortunately. In articles published in 2003 in the Journal of Children’s Literature and in 2005 in Knowledge Quest, I reviewed every study I could find on Accelerated Reader. I found that the studies compare doing Accelerated Reader to doing nothing. There has been no properly designed study comparing all four parts of Accelerated Reader to simply providing lots of books and time to read.

Here is an analogy: I have just developed a new drug called CALMDOWN, containing Zoloft and sugar. I have given it to a lot of people and they say they feel better. Can I claim I have found something new? There is another problem with programs such asAccelerated Reader: As Alfie

Kohn has pointed out, they give children a reward for doing something that is already intrinsically pleasant. This sends the message that reading must be unpleasant, that nobody would do it without being bribed. In the words ofStanford University psychologists Mark Lepper and David Greene, rewards can “turn play into work.” There have been no long-term studies of accelerated reader.


We have lots of evidence on encouraging reading: Most powerful is access to interesting and comprehensible books. Contrary to popular opinion, when children have access to good books, they read them. Children of poverty have very little access to books at home, at school (inferior classroom and school libraries) and in their communities (fewer bookstores, inferior public libraries). It’s no wonder they have lower reading scores. Also: Read-alouds (here is an interesting title of a paper that says it all: “Sixteen books went home tonight: Fifteen were introduced by the teacher,” by Danny Brassell, published in the California Reader in 2003). The champion of read-alouds is Jim Trelease, the author of the Read-Aloud Handbook, now in its sixth edition (www.Trelease-on-reading.com). Contrary to popular opinion, when children haveaccess to good books, they read them. The money spent on Accelerated Reader should be spent on classroom libraries and school libraries."