Rebecca Field Photography

Planet of the Apes

This summer I have been exposed to many mothers in different situations.  The little gals and I have had quite a few play dates, trips to indoor play places, coffee shop meet-ups, library book groups, swimming pool hang-outs...anything to prevent myself from seeing how dusty my house is during peak daylight hours.  I have come to realize listening to conversations, just how much time Mothers devote to parenting issues.  I'm not sure whether it has to do with my ultra-intellectual neighborhood, or just the places I've picked to hang out, but there are many mothers out there reading up on the latest parenting books and reading lots of blogs on how best to parent their children and talking about parenting when they get together to hang out.  The affect of all this conversing has lead me to feel a bit anti-intellectual.  I am at the moment, quite happy with the way my children are turning out.  I think I have enjoyed two children this summer who are at just the most tolerable of ages at the same time.  Perhaps by the time they reach another horrible stage, I will be gleefully back working full-time.  I have chalked this lull in the storm up to pure luck and I have read nothing about parenting this summer.  I have, however,  watched a very influential parenting movie.  I have decided to base a new parenting theory on the movie Tarzan (a movie that Rose has been quite enamored of lately).  Tarzan was raised by Gorillas who parented on pure instinct, and  grew up to find true love and happiness.  He shunned materialism, ate organic produce, and was able to see the good in everyone of many different species.  Seems like the best parenting manual out there.  I have stocked up on Bananas and been grunting and beating on my chest and its working!  If anyone wants to know how I wrapped those vines around my house, let me know- 

one month

My summer has slowly trickled down to a month.  A month is all I have left until school starts.  Its totally okay, in a way.  I am excited about school starting.  I am teaching AP Art History again, I am missing some of my students, and I actually have some lesson ideas.  I am ready for school to begin (minus a serious lack of wardrobe choices), but I am feeling terribly grumpy about giving my girls up again.  We are completely in the summer groove. 

Rose is acting like a wonder child.  She is, I can say with an almost religious fervor, going through a golden age not unlike 16th century London, except with indoor plumbing.  I believe she even bathes less than your average Elizabethan.  Her days are filled with phrases like "Mommy, I love you so, so much!" and "I think I want to clean my room." and "Mommy, my baby sister is the best baby sister in the whole world!"  She fills my days with a narrative of unequaled information having to do with everything from why people can still see with sunglasses on,  to the recipes of every dish we order at restaurants.  The girl has quite the encyclopedic brain.

Lilah has become my summer sidekick.  She has developed a taste for mocha frappachinos, she has swung on every swing in every park in the city proper, and she has encouraged my obsession with shopping at the farmers market.  The gal can throw down a strawberry smoothie and a muffin in 30 seconds flat.  Her recent bouts with temper have only endeared her more in my heart.

I will go through some serious withdrawal in a few weeks.  I am trying not to think about it, but slowly my brain is starting to organize...I am beginning to open my laptop every now and then...real life is sneaking back.  This train of thought can only lead to the purchasing of a 1st day of school outfit.  Its the only cure for summer.

celebrating 4 1/2

Today is the last Day of pre-school celebration and I, with all the other Mommies, watch from afar.  She's proud of her friends and her teachers and her world that I rarely get to see. She shows her sister around the pre-school room and makes sure her sister is safe.  She turns her head often to make sure I'm watching while she plays.  She's unbelievably grown-up and brave and already so skilled at being four-and-a-half.  

She asks me so many questions I can't answer.  She asks me about death, about God, and about time.  We read Charlotte's Web every night and I curse myself for reading it to her- its so very sad, and I'm not sure she's ever noticed that people eat real animals- what an upsetting idea.  She's four-and-a-half and she asks for privacy and closes the door to her room to be by herself when she gets home from school.  My time with her is so short- 18 years or so...and I've used up so much of it already yelling at her and feeling exhausted and not appreciating her and wondering how to relate to her drama and her passion.  She truly is a wonder.

Quiet time

Dreaming

2 girls and a camera

trying out my new camera...

A rainy Sunday at the art museum

Rose and I ran through the puddles to see the Impressionist exhibit.  We brought our pencils and our sketchbooks.  It was quite an afternoon.

Landscape in the Style of Frank Myers Boggs (an American Impressionist)

Rose working on her sketch ("Mommy, this pencil is running out of ink!")

Rose

Her favorite was Childe Hassam's Poppies on the Isle of Shoals.

In front of Verones's The Dead Christ :
"Look at that naked Daddy!"
"I see his tushie!"
"What is all that red all over him?"
"Is he sleeping?"

So how do Christian parent's explain it?

We rise.

Out of the huts of history's shame
            I rise
            Up from a past that's rooted in pain
            I rise
            I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
            Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
            Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
            I rise
            Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
            I rise
            Bringing the gifts that my ancestors             gave,
            I am the dream and the hope of the             slave.
            I rise
            I rise
            I rise.
            -Maya Angelou

Out of  the fever that sickness brought
We Rise
Up from the past weeks' mucus we've fought
We Rise
I'm a calm ocean, joyful and sunny ,
I'm back to my old jokes that aren't even funny
Leaving behind nights of flem, snot and drool
We Rise
Into a morning where we are all off to school.
We Rise
Bearing the gifts of bright eyes and bright faces,
Wearing our sneakers with sparkly pink laces.
We Rise
We Rise
We Rise

Thanks Maya for the inspiration.  I definitely hear you, sister.

PS- if anyone with any sort of viral or bacterial infection comes near either of my children, I will tear you up.

the flu

One of those nights
... in which I gaze into Rose's feverish eyes and wish for her smile, even her whining, to return...
...in which I feel her burning hot neck and rush to cover her shivering body with more blankets.
...in which Rose askes me to stay home with her tomorrow and I answer "I can't.  Mommy has an art show to go to, sweetie and standardized testing..."  "Okay." she answers back as tears well up in her eyes.  I try to entice her with thoughts of her grandparent's new TV.
...in which Rose screams and refuses to drink "the spicy medicine" that will lower her fever and my temper threatens to boil over.
...in which I sit up and wait for Lilah to wake just as sick as her sister.
...in which I feel like a bad mother, helpless, worried, and very, very tired.

Budding scientist

Recent questions from Rose:

1. Where does food go after we eat it?
2.What is on inside of a tree?
3.What are clouds made of?
4.How did I eat when I was inside your belly?
5. Where will you be standing when you die?
6. Why don't we live in a rain forest?
7. Which Jaskon Five person plays the drums?
8. Why does it sound like two people are singing in this song when there is only one?
9.Will Little Einsteins be in the new TV?
10.WHEN ARE WE GOING TO BE THERE? I"MTIRED OF THIS CAR! I"M SOAKING HOT!