~a month in the life of a lifelong learner~ scutoid cake, pancakes, and warm butter tortillas

Posted on July 18, 2019 by marybethrew

~3-23 to 4-23~

for spring break we had no big plans other than reconnecting a bit with each other.

spring break breakdown:

monday

q went to work with me; listening to lemony snicket audio again; also a sparkle stories installment of the “how to be super” series he hasn’t listened to yet entitled “the dragon within.” i love that he is 12 and still wants to catch up on new installments to stories. he has been a sparkler since he was four! we also went to the bank and i walked him through depositing checks into his savings account including filling out the deposit slip and writing his cursive signature. the lesson also covered speaking to the teller: “i’d like to make a deposit” etc. he is fun. he’s been depositing my checks at the atm as long as he’s been listening to sparkle stories, but when he goes to italy, he may need to make some in-person transactions to exchange money (or maybe it’s all machines, but he’ll be fine with that). it seemed like something everyone should know how to do even if you rarely do it anymore. he gets “scottie saver bucks” when he shows up to do his banking in person, so he can save them for prizes. with him it’s a matter of whether he’ll ever spend any of them. or his real dollars for that matter!

p.s. i love the ability to fact-check myself on my blog. indeed, q has been sparkling since age four.

tuesday

we baked gooey yummy scutoid cake! we watched the hobbit; he stayed home alone for part of the morning while i went to work. i came home to him reading his calculus book. we did logic puzzles and anagrams all week, some inspired by navigating early (coxswain seat and its pesky silent w!).

wednesday

he helped me take care of koala and wombat for camp boss, and ruby dog! we started a new favorite habit of playing scrabble dice at dinner. the scrabble dice are now a permanent fixture on the table.

thursday

he watched the desolation of smaug, snuggled ruby, drew on graph paper. he had picnics in the bathtub throughout the week.

friday

a math meltdown turned into a hammock therapy session. i am working on instilling the concept of self care. sometimes you need to take a break from homework and visit the trees…

…and peek at the owl pellets! it’s no surprise to me that we have been hosting quinn’s spirit animal in our back yard forest.

pancakes and warm butter tortillas

every time our pancakes visit, there are always striking visible signs of how much all three kids have grown. this time quinn looks like he towers over them. he has clearly grown the most in the past year. it is just so good to watch the 3 of them fall into their play like nothing has happened and no time has passed. the longer they’re together, the more and more comfortable they get, and the more they’ll go in serious pretend play directions.

one thing i was noticing about the girls (a similarity they have with quinn) is they know what they want. they got to our house friday at 4, just when quinn and i were pulling into the driveway. sometime that evening, b asked if i would make pancakes for breakfast the next morning. i said i couldn’t because i had to go to work so early, but that i planned to make them sunday, and she was fine with that. saturday night she was getting ready for bed and looked sideways at me, “mary beth, pancakes tomorrow?” oh yes. then they both helped me make the pancakes. “do you have some chocolate chips for the pancakes?” and i did. and z said she would like hers with blueberries, so we did both. and grandpa had his with chocolate chips and blueberries. they did lots of art as usual, but at one point z asked, “do you have colored pencils?” because she was wanting them instead of markers. b had a little cold when they arrived, and was a lot better after a few days at our house but her appetite was a little low the first day or two. i made pizza friday night that everyone else ate but she wasn’t feeling it. she thought maybe a quesadilla sounded good, but she likes the cheese that is yellow and white, and i only had pepper jack and yellow cheddar. so she settled on “warm buttered tortilla” at which point i said sure! and walked into where her dad was in the living room, “so, fill me in on the preparation of a warm buttered tortilla?” and he laughed. in case you are curious about the recipe, it is:

warm buttered tortilla

spread butter on a tortilla.

microwave for 10 seconds.

by the end of the weekend she had eaten about a whole package of tortillas and she was independently cooking her own warm buttered tortillas.

the girls still have the tendency to be able to get a little wild, but they are so mellow compared to when they were younger. it is really easy for me now to steer them into something indoors-appropriate, which is good because we had rain all weekend. a little novelty goes a long way. i put out graph paper instead of plain, because it was what i found first, and they loved it and dove into making cool pictures on graph paper. later on they had a paper airplane contest going between the 3 of them, and it was very controlled and awesome (they tossed them towards the stairway so nobody would be “impaled” by an airplane, as quinn put it. the girls got SO into the scrabble dice we had on the table that i pulled out a couple of other sets of them i have collected from the thrift store so each one of them could have enough to really spell some things. they played a little bit of minecraft together, but mostly they were very off-screen, playing hide and seek in the house and playing with the game qbitz. when we went to watch their dad’s alumni basketball games, i brought uno and a deck of cards and they played war. at one point they were playing a four-way version with another little girl they had absorbed into their midst.

for rich’s birthday the kids helped me make brownies. they kept it a top secret birthday dessert and would go to the kitchen doorway and announce, “no one is allowed to come in here!”

then they got into playing a pretend dog school game (there was training and giving the dogs treats and taking them on walks involved…) i can see why they adore quinn who is a giant 12 year old but will still crawl around on the floor and play doggy school with them.

more hide and seek. the funniest moments. one time grandpa helped z hide and the others took a half hour to find her. she would wait until she could hear they were in the other room looking and would say the funniest things from her hiding spot and grandpa and i were in stitches. then she had a great hiding spot once while b was counting but before the counting finished, z got tempted by the bubble wrap beside her hiding spot and we kept hearing *pop* giggle… *popoppopop* teehehehe! and of course b found her right away. z’s kryptonite is bubble wrap.

quinn read them the first dog and some of nim’s island at bedtime.

a few times during the visit, quinn went to the other extreme from the little kid pretend play and entered the nerd zone and it was kind of cute. the girls just accept his nerdiness and don’t really seem phased by it at all. he would take a break, “i’m going to go read calculus.” the other book he is reading is about the periodic table called elements. he’d come back from reading some of that, having memorized choice lines about alkali metals or how bananas are radioactive.

academics, culture, and miscellaneous learning

i had a conversation with quinn about the oxford comma when he brought it up, borrowing a tip i learned from a fellow poppy mom. To quote her, because someone else needs this:

“Zombies, or dinosaurs. Whenever you have to describe an abstract concept, pull out zombies or dinosaurs.

“You were so hungry, you were a dinosaur at dinner.” That is super easy for kids to see, feel, and understand and it then makes a REALLY good jumping off point for figurative language.

Also good for Oxford comma, etc.

“Go get your brothers, the zombie, and the dinosaur, for dinner.” (There are children, a zombie and a dinosaur.)

“Go get your brothers, the zombie and the dinosaur for dinner” (There are two coming to dinner, the zombie and the dinosaur.)

Passive voice: I am being eaten by zombies.

If you can add “by zombies”, it’s (almost always) passive voice.

Zombies or dinosaurs man, I’m telling you.”

quinn will sit down at the table and then look over at me in the kitchen and say “can i have a fork?” and i think it’s ridiculous he doesn’t notice there’s no fork before he sits down, or just get back up and get one himself. so i give him a hard time for it. i said, “you’re a dork without a fork,” and got him one. and he said, “yes, i’m a forkless dork.”

quinn and i went to the high school play. i have so much love for today’s youth and their natural skepticism for disney’s princess-marries-prince storyline. saturday night the three of us went to othello. quinn has such a grip on shakespearean language, it just doesn’t seem to phase him. goldberry was in the play and rich had several friends in it so we went back to the green room afterwards to say hi to the cast. q had a headache during the first act, so he leaned on me and took a nap and it went away! he was totally fine the rest of the night, and he didn’t even lose track of the plot… he is quull. he just needs to remember to hydrate.

it was a weekend of theatre and half-baked easter celebration. i did plan ahead enough to order him a dino-themed magic card deck. the artists who paint the cards are rad, the dinos have feathers and are colorful – they do their research. quinn also approved heartily. he made me play a game with him sunday night, which completely boggled my mind. but i also did not provide the boy with a sibling, so this is what i have to do. When i say half-baked i’m mostly referring to how i filled his plastic eggs with costco snacks we already had on hand, but quinn and i also dyed easter eggs.

catching up on homework each time he comes home is an ongoing theme, but he is doing a bit better. he had an F in travel hacking last term, as he wasn’t turning in anything. it’s all google-classroom based, and i didn’t know that last term but now i do, and now he is getting caught up. he is also feeling a lot more positive about travel again, and saturday while i was at market he was back on duolingo for the first time in a while. he has goal of “being able to talk with the locals” when he is on his italy trip. the teacher for that class is the one who leads the italy trip, so i’m glad he is turning it around. his teacher is very understanding, “most of them are 8th graders, i’m used to 8th graders.” and i know this because i sell him organic veggies.

he is pushing 5’4″. he is “wah don’t make me do homework” and “please pretty please can i read calculus and learn italian before bedtime?” all rolled into one. he had his first marching band rehearsal and he came home and had several dinners. (he is now having multiple breakfasts, too. oy!)

~a month in the life of a lifelong learner~ sierpenski’s rubik’s tetrahedron

Posted on January 24, 2019 by marybethrew

~covering 10-23-18 to 11-23-18~

social learning

the first middle school dance!

he was so quull. he decided to wear his owl jacket with jeans and sneakers. legolas went with another friend, and quinn was hoping aragorn and gimli would go, but they didn’t. he ended up hanging out with two other boys who were into dancing, and “by the end of the night, i knew how to dance!” he stayed on the dance floor all night. i asked if he did the escape room and he said no, he just danced. the only money he spent was $1 for a bottle of water so he must really have been dancing!

he said hi to the girl he likes, but they didn’t hang out or dance. his last minute questions in the car going over “what if she asks me to dance” were priceless.

legolas invited the fellowship to his birthday party. quinn’s card making involved sharpies, his four color pen, and google image searches of yu-gi-oh characters. at the party, they played laser tag!

we had aragorn over for a day. they played shogi chess, yu-gi-oh, and star wars monopoly. by 1:45 when we were supposed to take them both over to his house for the evening, they had just ventured outside to do some shelter/fortress building, so we extended the visit to accommodate more outside time. quinn is amazing with a hatchet, and i like it when he has others around who help anchor him outdoors, long enough to swing one around a bit.

school learning

we had conferences this month and met with every teacher. his math teacher was enthusiastic about his dramatic “improvement” and it was nice for quinn to hear it from her. we met all the other teachers as well: tag, spanish, social studies, homeroom, p.e., language arts, science, and band.

tag is held every other week, and they’ll go on field trips, so it has been my “in” as far as volunteering, not just because i sell organic veggies to the teacher. i think since it is his break period on normal days that he has to give up, he is happy for any help. apparently the rest of the tag kids are as forgetful as quinn, so quinn (whose mama had set a loud phone alarm to remind him about it) was the first kid to show up the day i started volunteering. he “complained” about the alarm with a big grin on his face. it was nice to see him and he wanted me to be his cribbage partner. the class was small, around 12 kids total. it’s a cool classroom full of tools and projects and stuff, this teacher teaches all the “STEM” classes such as engineering and robotics as well.

games, puzzles, and fizzbuzzes

we are doing lots of logic puzzles, often in the evening after dinner. anagrams have been a recent pastime as well.

vi hart’s latest project was called 50 fizzbuzzes, a panel of 50 python programs, variations on a script to write fizz for every multiple of 3 and buzz for every multiple of 5, and we were both intrigued. once he found out that version #48 was a “FIZZ DUNGEON GAME” he played all the way to the conclusion of the game (101).

her reasoning behind writing the program 50 times was to truly explore all the facets of learning python that she could, eliminating assumptions and challenging her thinking along the way. many of the results turned out to be very creative. quinn and i both especially loved version #42 which prints beebs and froods instead of fizzes and buzzes, and for 42 prints ******DON’T PANIC******

it was a learning experience for us as well, as we have never worked in python either, but in order to run the scripts, we had to install a python interface to work in, and it was neat to see both the code she had written and the working programs, side by side. i liked that not all of the programs worked flawlessly, all good things for my young perfectionist to observe of his hero.

he stated that he wants to create a set of cards on graph paper (a project he has started in many forms – spinoff games on pokemon or magic the gathering) “but this time i want to really follow through on it.” i thought that was a very interesting observation for quinn to make, knowing how much of my life i have spent as a project creator/not necessarily finisher. i would not be surprised if his own project motivations are ultimately what inspires him to come to grips with time management.

he made a game from legos, including separate playing boards for two people, but explained to me “this is only a prototype of the game.” we played a few rousing games of yu-gi-oh. we had a fun discussion about rubik’s cubes in which he thought of a cool way to make sierpenski’s triangle into sierpenski’s tetrahedron. and then we thought of sierpenski’s rubik’s tetrahedron and had a geek session of doodling ideas on paper of how it would work.

he still needs a ton of prompting to get his homework done, and then to hand it in, and then to retake tests, or follow up on finishing them when he doesn’t finish them in the allotted time, or freaks out and decides he can’t do them on test day. in outside-of-school math, however, he is finished reading life of fred geometry and is ready for me to order him trigonometry.

the other kind of pi

the morning after he finished the geometry text he told me, “i had a dream that you me and dada and my sister who was my twin, were going home to the barn. but we didn’t have a car, so we were walking along a cliff edge, and me and my sister fell off. and then my sister and i made it to shelter but then we got separated. then we found each other, and the dream ended.”

the main source of material for the dream, i knew, had been the life of fred geometry book, in which part of the plot (spoiler alert) is that fred falls in love with P, and then in the end it turns out that P is his long lost twin sister. it made me want to read the whole series now to get the back story of fred!

i asked if he knew where the rest of it came from, and he said, “i don’t know because that’s never happened before, it’s always either me and dada, or me and you” and i said, “well, when you were very little all three of us were together, but even though that couldn’t continue, i think it’s really normal for a kid whose parents aren’t together to always wish for a way it could be. and sometimes when you dream and you’re not in control of your thoughts, things that are a deeper part of you can come up that you didn’t realize you had thoughts about.” i think he appreciated that validation.

he said his twin looked a lot like one of the characters from yu-gi-oh named ishizu.

he is using the duo lingo app to learn italian, inspired by signing up to go to italy in just over a year, and i caught this audio of him saying “butterflies are insects” in italian:

on thanksgiving day, i caught him mouthing the words to rock me mama like a wagon wheel through mouthfuls of pancakes when rich put it on the stereo and started building a fire. quinn helped by making personal pies, and eating 3 pumpkins, 2 pecans, and an apple before heading off to his dad’s.

~thankful thursday~ birds and bees

Posted on November 9, 2017 by marybethrew

i have been making a daily gratitude post on facebook once again this year, (if you’re interested, here are last year’s posts) and once again i will transcribe them all over here on thursdays so that my friends who have had the better judgement not to join facebook may read them.

11/1/17

~30 days of gratitude~ day 1

i am thankful today for hummingbirds. i am once again entering november with an inkling that i could stand to realign my partly cloudy attitude with some gratitude. today i got a text from a friend inviting me to come and see the costa’s hummingbird visiting her feeder, which i will do tomorrow. when i got home after work, i took my camera outside to visit our own hummingbirds and realized this one would let me approach it quite closely for some glamor shots. i ended last november’s gratitude fest on providence, and i think it is not coincidental that this little harbinger of joy is returning to my awareness today. while i have a tendency to let thoughts weigh me down, these tiny beings show me how they alight here and there, without all that heaviness. they change direction as often as needed; they remind me i always have a choice to redirect towards joy. they guard fiercely, but dance joyfully, and choose to drink in sweetness. they surround themselves in flowers, hovering amid beauty, embodying lightness of being. i’m grateful for their help today getting me on the right vibration for this practice.

11/2/17

~30 days of gratitude~ day 2

both cats are on my lap leaving no room for my laptop, so i’m contorting my wrists to type off to one side of the chair, it’s late after a delightful date night, and i must head to bed soon. but guys, i got home from my costa’s hummingbird visit after work, only to have my husband waving me down to the edge of the forest, flashing the “bring your camera” hand signals, and we got to hang out with this amazing barred owl for a nice long photo session. he told the owl it needed to hold on until i got home, and of course, the owl listened. the conversation went something like, “who cooks for you?” to which he replied, “my beautiful wife… she’ll be home in just a minute and i’ll introduce you!” we’ve been listening to this owl and even spied it in the dark on one of our walk-to-the-mailbox dates, but seeing it in our trees with some daylight left for photos was an unexpected treat. i am very grateful that i get to be married to a guy who appreciates the magic of the natural world as much as i do.

~30 days of gratitude~ day 3

today (yesterday… posting belatedly what was on my mind) i am thankful for the ripple effect of this 30 day gratitude practice. i would never have started doing this if i hadn’t read wonderful gratitude thoughts from good friends of mine prior to last year. then, this year, it seems i have inspired another friend to give it a try. in addition, so many great connections are made by friends whose comments also serve to amplify the gratitude. selfishly, i have been enjoying my own gratitude posts from last year, thanks to the memories feature. while it may seem a bit circular to be grateful for gratitude, i realized when my post from last year about my amazing mom came up, for whom i am forever grateful, that every one of these i write is essentially extending gratitude forward through time to influence my future self to dedicate even more neurons to feeling grateful, where the ripple effect of blessings can compound the interest on today’s investment in the thank bank. i’m envisioning this little hummingbird flying back to me in another year, tiny saddlebags overflowing with blessings that have been packed into it today, special deliveries from this present moment.

11/4/17

~30 days of gratitude~ day 4

i am thankful for my family!

i was curious about last year’s 30 items for which i was grateful, so i made a list.

2016 gratitude list

fiance, wood stove fires
karate and yoga
mom
abundance
quinn
laughter
best woman lau
big ocean waves, perspective, impermanence
words
music
community
kitties, wood stove fires, safety pins, memory loss
dad
the farm
wood stove fires, kitties, food, baths, whiskey, coffee, soft blankets, music, home
siblings
books
joe biden and his work advocating for women
outside time to work on my garden, board games with friends, grandma’s pie crust, kids whispering to each other’s faces, farmer’s market, etc.
therapy, not needing get an A in gratitude, photography
love notes
nachos, dorkaversaries, chats with mom, chats with friends, library, nachos
wood stove fires, music, friends, family, things that are bigger than my little circumstances and help me have perspective, kitties, playing games with my kid, nachos, books, and my fiance
water
our kids
buyers of my future book, words beginning with q
role models (barbara kingsolver, jane goodall, ani difranco)
dolphins
awareness, friendly reminders, long hugs, e.e. cummings
providence

i know that last year i fluctuated between feeling like i couldn’t possibly fit all i am grateful for into a mere 30 days, and feeling like my gratitude gland was shrunken and all the wonderful things were distant and unreachable. it makes sense, because we all have good days and bad days. right now on the gratitude-o-meter, i am feeling extra thankful, and that probably has to do with spending a day and a half on back-to-back consecutive dates with my husband, and then ending today with my son back at home with us. kitties are snuggled near the wood stove fire, good food, friends, family, and live music have been involved in the various dates, and since being home i have been serenaded via both radio and you tube. quinn typed a zombie novel inside a minecraft book, and stuffed himself with grilled cheese and tomato soup and green cauliflower and ranch dressing. feeding my people well always makes me feel like i am doing a good job at life. maybe that is why i was disproportionately thankful for nachos last year (i still am). looking back at last year’s list, i had to laugh at how repetitive i was on some of the days i remember as being the ones where gratitude was harder to access… default back to kitties, nachos, and wood stove fires if all else fails. which is code for, i love these two people and the family we are together and the home, kitties, nachos and wood stove fires we share, with all of my heart.

11/5/17

~30 days of gratitude~ day 5

sweet like candy to my soul, sweet you rock and sweet you roll ~dave matthews band

i am grateful for honey! today my honey drove us through the colorful maples and oaks of the valley to pick up our annual 4 gallon bucket of local honey, which will last us almost until this time next year. it will sweeten the pancakes and bread that will nourish us, and mix into the elderberry cough syrup i am going to make. it will feature in hot garlic and lemon beverages to doctor any winter colds. my wedding ring will keep making a happy clicking sound on the side of the honey jar every morning when i pull it out of the cupboard to add it to rich’s coffee, honey for my honey. (he sneaks into so many of these posts, that husband of mine! so grateful for him.)

11/6/17

~30 days of gratitude~ day 6

having sailed through most of this first week of gratitude with an apparent fixation on birds and bees, i would like to wish everyone a happy national nacho day! i am thankful for nachos, and you all already know that, but i can’t very well focus on something other than nachos, now that i know this is their official holiday! i am indebted to my friend for alerting me to this important fact. we dutifully ate nachos for dinner tonight. i realized i did not want to use a photo of nachos (which i haven’t taken, because i don’t find them all that attractive to look at, especially by dinner time in november when there’s no more light for photography), so i decided instead to post a nacho-related photo of summer. we traditionally eat a giant multi-family meal of nachos on our annual july 4^th camping trip. i believe these kids, for whom i am grateful, may have just consumed said meal, because this is the way their hair lights up in the evening sun in july, and i am grateful for that, even though it’s not the way the light looks in the evening in november. if i could mother-may-i my way in large leaps towards the summer i would probably do so, but i think there must be a good reason i’m not allowed to accelerate through this part of the year. while i am waiting to learn how to embrace winter, i will spend these chilly dark nights thinking of those warm sunny days, in gratitude.

11/7/17

~30 days of gratitude~ day 7

today i am thankful for a beautiful sunrise.

11/8/17

~30 days of gratitude~ day 8

i’m thankful for apples today. when we got home from work and school today, quinn sat in the car and read his book. in spite of staying up reading by led candle under his covers past 11 last night, he still wanted to keep reading. i may need to have a talk with that rick riordan fellow. anyway, i decided i’d warm up some apple cider and poured some into quinn’s travel mug, and by the time i had it finished he was still in the car. i delivered it to him there, and went off to read a book and have a cup of cider myself, in the house.

our cider came from an annual gathering attended by the same families referred to in the 4^th of july nachos post, and several gallons are stored in jars to see us through the winter. drinking in sweetness seems to be a theme for me this round of gratitude posts!

apples also make me think of my parents and their apple endeavors on the farm. my parents have spent the last few years rehabilitating orchards on the farm land, and my mom has become quite the expert on the local heirloom apple varieties. gratitude for apples makes me think of gratitude for my parents and the example they have set for me of a couple happily going on dates (via tractor and wagon to visit their apples) every chance they get, after 40+ years of marriage.

i think apples will always remind me of all of the connections among my friends and family members, many of which reached a new level of connectedness this summer during our wedding festivities. as quinn sipped his cider today, he mentioned how much he loves the dried apples his grammy sends him each christmas. that warmed my heart every bit as much as my warm cider.

simmering a rew part 4 ~ salt and pepper to taste

Posted on February 12, 2016 by marybethrew

continued from simmering a rew part 3

<3 <3 <3

then i drew some cards about me (focusing on my work, friendships, and family)…

“soul knows the way,” a seabird soaring just outside a city tells the story of tuning in to the intuitive whispers even when there is a lot of loud distraction at hand.

and

“potential,” the acorn, in possession of all it needs to become an oak tree, if the right nutrients, climate, soil, circumstances are present. “we can also open to, and seek, community. actualizing potential relies on interdependency.” yes we can. i am so thankful for the friends i know i can lean on, and who can lean on me, in a beautiful dance of giving and receiving. a tree cannot thrive, nor even begin to grow, without its community.

isn’t it funny how clearly we can perceive the messages when they are about other people? i am not really sure what to make of these mb cards this round, not sure if i am actualizing my potential, not sure if my soul knows the way to doing so. there is loud distraction and yet it’s possible to stay pointed true to one’s course. i am succeeding at staying the course in the important ways (keeping the heart-shaped lens in focus), and maybe, one day, my work will truly line up with all of the curled potential within me. i think there’s more to me than skilled labor in exchange for a paycheck, however big a relief it is to me in this current life season to have gainful employment.

at the time i drew the cards, i had been seeing owls a lot. one was actually right by the vacation house, and another one was along the highway coming back from a friend’s house. i was almost surprised not to draw any owl cards, though the cards i did draw made sense. then i picked out one more card, just last week, with my writing in mind. this time i drew the barn owl; heart-shaped face, mascot for this lighthearted year i’m embarking on. i have quite a few future post ideas (and even some post series) a-brewing and a-simmering, but they are coming along like molasses in january, so it almost feels to me like i’m not producing any results at all. here’s what the spirit owl card had to say about that:

this peaceful creature is wintering away in a calm trance, a sitting prayer of silence and deep connection. owl wakes us up to the truth, and then cuddles us in his downy feathers to enjoy the dreamlike nature of quiet honesty. open your heart wide, as barn owl’s heart-shaped face invites and discover yourself without limits. then sleep on it.

myself without limits… the curled potential within, discovering itself without limits. i’m not there yet, but i do like the idea that i’m in a sitting prayer of silence (sort of, except for this verbosity), while these ideas steep and await their season of waking and unfolding.

<3 <3 <3

while i didn’t make an actual list of new years’ resolutions, i did settle on a few intentions that kept popping into my mind. in no particular order, i intend to see some live music with my man this year, shave my legs at least a few times, go to a doctor, a dentist, and get a new pair of glasses for myself, and administer regular self care with special emphasis on my top three high-octane practices: baths, writing and taking pictures.

taking pictures outside, to be exact.

i muddled my way through my new health insurance plan, chose a dentist (the one rich sees), a doctor (a holistic-sounding osteopath/acupuncturist who is incredibly “in network” on my plan; rich thinks he should go see her, too, why not share all of our health care providers? in sickness and in health, as the saying goes. or is it, what’s mine is his?) and the eye exam can wait a few months, since i did actually attend to that in 2015 (all three of us see the same optometrist).

during the first leg shave of 2016 i was overcome by a wave of apathy and almost didn’t do the second leg, but somehow stuck it out and finished the job. it’s really not important to me either way, but a certain someone appreciates this detail. like rinsing eggs before i crack them, i will happily do it forever because it matters to that sweet someone.

we’re working on being proactive on the health part, and the “in sickness” has been a doozy this season for us as well. being sick in tandem is part of the journey. we’ve reached a new level of our relationship now that we’ve heard each other puke. then we got sick again; this time the eye-burning, hair-hurting fever/chill variety of ouch, which we seem to be laden with again just two weeks later (now). yes, i’ll take sickness and health with this guy. he lets me brew up hippie concoctions of garlic, ginger, cayenne, honey and lemon to soothe his throat, and smiles even bigger if i add a splash of whiskey before handing it to him. and in the healthy times, i send him vague texts about photographing at the beach as he finishes his work day, knowing he will come take a walk with me to make sure i’m not being swallowed by any sneaker waves while i’m holding my camera up to my face. we take care of each other like that.

alright, i’ve written enough. it’s your turn. what are you simmering? what’s on your back burner? how are the winter months treating you? what do you add to your best cold-fighting concoction? tell me about ways you find inspiration and affirmation. what are your top three high-octane self care practices? what do you see, right now, if you look through a heart-shaped lens? share in the comments!

~a month in the life of a lifelong learner~ miracles

Posted on January 16, 2016 by marybethrew

the trouble with blog posts is, there’s no way to make them scratch-and-sniff. perhaps i can utilize some sort of jedi mind trick to make you smell this clove-filled orange while you read about our month of lifelong learning.

rich’s daughter and her fiance came for thanksgiving, and brought quinn a drone. the boys had fun flying it and rescuing it from the hedge with the apple-picker each time it got stuck. these two share a birthday, and i know q looks up to him, i mean, the guy has serious paintball equipment, c’mon. both daughter and son-in-law-to-be are very sweet with quinn.

since our own christmas ornaments were in storage, we decided to make some. then we ended up giving most of them away as gifts, which was a great way to spend less money and avoid giving people things they didn’t want. (because how could they not want a handmade owl from quinn’s pinecone owl colony?) hot glue and some craft foam from the dollar store… and we were cranking out little droid-esque owls in no time. quinn asked me favorite colors of family members he was sending them to, which i thought was very thoughtful of him. he thinks often of his new york family and i know it means a lot to him to do nice things for them and think of them smiling from far away when they opened his gift.

for yet another pinterest project idea we used dollar-store ornaments to make ninja turtles, some to keep, and some to give away to karate instructors and quinn’s third grade teacher, who used to do tae kwon do. quinn did research, and interviewed each instructor to find out their favorite ninja turtle so he could personalize their gifts.

who’s your favorite? q loves rafael, and i am a donatello fan myself.

with clay from our personal ceramics tutor and buddy, quinn worked at sculpting elf, dwarf, wizard, hobbit and ranger mover pieces for his d and d monopoly game.

pokemon card making experienced a surge of renewed interest this month.

the school book fair enchanted quinn, and i remember feeling that way myself when i was a kid, so i gave him some spending money to choose a few (overpriced and of questionable quality, but still) books. i was impressed with his choices: the next installment of diary of a wimpy kid (he had read the whole series up to that point from the library, and was very much looking forward to the next installment), a how-to-draw teenage mutant ninja turtles book (i used to come home from every book fair with a how-to-draw book of some sort), a set of star wars stickers, and a pokemon collector’s handbook. the pokemon handbook induced spin-off activities such as list-making and story writing. pictured above, he is working on quinn’s pokemon story using my laptop.

3 people went to new york for 7 days. they spent 8 hours a day at a hotel. how many hours did they spend at the hotel?

i pondered a bit this month about helping quinn catch his writing skills up to the level of his math and reading skills, but i don’t really think there is much i need to do. he is motivated to write now more than ever, and has lots of ideas: the writing force awakens. his teacher had told me he was less than motivated to write during certain assignments, such as writing his daily “math review” which entails explaining how he solved the math equation. he tends to space out and just not do it, his teacher said, and i nodded knowingly, thinking of how he spaces out and “just doesn’t do” things like getting dressed or putting on shoes. and yet, when it is something that sets him on fire, like making a game or sorting out a new pokemon deck, he has stick-to-it-ive-ness alright, and the space-out symptoms vanish. i liked how he took the make-up-a-problem assignment above and made it into something he cared about – traveling to new york. personalizing mundane assignments is a skill i don’t think i really made conscious use of until graduate school. i think he will learn to tap into that skill for completing assignments that make him want to stick his pencil in his eye, like math review apparently does, and i bet his math reviews will become the most enjoyable read in the stack.

music! quinn still routinely talks about drumming with special interest, when it comes to music, and i do think he is a rhythm-oriented guy, when i see him dance. also, based on the songs he chooses as favorites, i see a definite rhythm-o-phile in the making. he is also playing recorder at school, so we are doing a little at home as well (he said he has his b, a and g figured out). they don’t have music every week- each class has it for a whole week’s specials about twice a semester, but the teacher makes great use of the time, and we’re grateful for the little bit we do get. i have my eye on some star wars recorder music, as well as a cool curriculum for earning karate belts for mastering different songs on recorder that i came across on this mom’s hilarious and well-written blog. stay tuned for me wanting to stick a pencil in my eye as we take this recorder journey together.

speaking of earning karate belts…

a young jedi looks for the good in all people; keeps his karate covered like a treasure in his pocket; and prays he never needs to use it, or for forgiveness if he ever does. love the symbolism and lessons that reach far beyond the mat… karate really is well-rounded, if your kid is going to be a one-extracurricular-activity kind of guy like mine.

testing for his red tip (final step before being eligible to promote to the next belt!)

his belt promotion paperwork. question: how can commitment help you obtain a black belt in karate? answer: commitment is a kind of cowoperation that helps you. question: name two things that you have set goals to do in the past two months. answer: be a green belt by the time i’m 11. be tying bunny loops by the time i’m a purple belt. i will take a small amount of credit for planting that bunny loop idea as a goal, because q had already mastered every other step of getting his karate gear on and off, including tying his belt and folding his uniform after practice, but the ties on the sides of his gi (top) required bunny loops, and he wears crocs on his feet and has never bothered to learn to tie laces. still, in case he wears running shoes ever, it seems like a handy skill to have, and i wanted him to set a deadline so he’d actually work towards it. he decided on purple belt, and then set to work learning bunny loops. and he has indeed learned to tie them, and on the day of his belt test, did not even ask me for help with his gi.

bad picture of bunny loop tying

belt test, the big night. several parents complimented him on how well he did, and his instructor gave him a special shout-out at the end for how hard he had worked to become proficient in his orange belt curriculum. he acknowledged how serious quinn had been in class lately, that his tendency to be a goofball had been less prominent in recent classes, and dubbed him the resident smile-bringer of the dojo.

goofball time is built in, even during belt tests- here the kids are showing off their balance at the very end, wearing their new belts.

smile bringer

now that he is a purple belt, he is in the advanced class, and quinn has been dying to get into that class for one single reason: they get to run for warm-ups! boy after my own heart, with ribs and gangly limbs poking out every which way just like 8 year old me.

we had a fun play date with friends, and got to play with a cool snap-together building toy called lux blox. quinn took his new bunny loop skills on the road and helped with tying his four-year-old buddy’s shoes. (awwwwwww.) we puppy-sat for our ruby again (she was helping him learn more computer programming skills) and also had doggy friends of our housemate to play with this month.

we launched our winter break with a friendly game of uno between the three of us, and ruby helped. my sweet 8 year old boy in a 45 year old’s body (who was 8 when he watched the original star wars on the big screen) took us out on a family date to watch the force awakens. no spoilers here, don’t worry. but oh, the fun! we sure liked it. what i personally liked most were the quirky quinn-isms that were whispered into my ear: “ok mama, the weapon is fully charged. i counted 30 seconds.”

equally as awesome, i walked into his bedroom that afternoon on him trying to use the force. he wasn’t even remotely deterred by my presence, and kept right on trying, commenting on how he was trying to figure out if the force was really real.

i told him i was sure of it.

quintuple sharp tusk; woolly mammoth-inspired pokemon attack powers

while making his dad’s pokemon cards for christmas, we hit a snag because the marker he needed for the background color (“brown sugar” is what he calls it) was drying up, and we didn’t have another one. nor did the store, though they had a close enough for mama color. it was not close enough for quinn. it took him a while, and a lot of trying to get the dried marker to work before he relented, but relent he finally did. then he told me, “it must be a miracle, because my instincts kicked in just in time and i was okay with using the other marker.”

between newfound flexibility and actually finding the christmas tree stand in the storage garage, we most definitely received our quota of christmas miracles.

from the light(hearted) side of the force, always, mb

quinn’s sixth month ~ mouth full of moss and tree full of owls

Posted on August 23, 2007 by marybethrew

7/24-7/31

i finally got to talk to mary ellen this week and it was so much fun to hear about life with her twin baby girls- their similarities (catelyn has magic marker on her toenail because they are so identical) and differences (catelyn prefers bottles, ellie prefers breastfeeding.) i can’t wait to see photos of them cuddled up together napping in the pack and play.

it was also a chance for me to reflect on the earlier baby days and see how things have changed. it happens gradually. one day i was excited because quinn was 3 weeks old and i went in the backyard for 10 minutes with him, then at 5 weeks i was psyching myself up to take him more and more places; now he’s 5 months and i take him just about anywhere. this week we went to the lab 2 days instead of just 1. he did great! i was exhausted on tuesday night- it feels like working 2 jobs simultaneously all day, then another shift when i get home. i did much better on thursday- i must be getting used to it.

quinn has a tooth really coming in now- the lower left front tooth. i can see a tiny bit more of it every day, so it seems it might be the winner of the “first tooth” award, even though those canines showed themselves first. while quinn was not as interested in frozen items in his two-month-old teething stage, he is now using his frozen seal flippers directly on his gums- AND he has the hand coordination to pick it up and put it there now!

this weekend we camped overnight in gifford pinchot national forest. it’s our closest free campsite even though it’s in washington- only an hour away. we hadn’t been camping since quinn was 8 weeks old and it snowed on us in the desert, so it was about time! we were a little nervous th
at someone would have taken our campsite, since we passed a lot of people camped at the river sites, but to get to ours you have to go all the way to the end of the forest service road, and it’s on a stream, not the river, which some people might think is less desirable. we prefer it, because it’s over a mile from any other human being. so quiet and peaceful.

well, apparently we are not the only beings who feel this way. we discovered shortly after we arrived on saturday afternoon that a fledgling spotted owl was watching us from its perch in a tree 50 feet from the campsite. as if that wasn’t amazing enough, it proceeded to fly to closer and closer branches as the afternoon progressed. we took pictures of quinn and the owl together, because eventually it was perched on the edge of the campsite. i sketched it for a while, we talked to it a bunch, it went between a few branches and observed us for a while, then settled on one and tried to nap, but it was too curious to keep its eyes closed. we got to see it stretch out a wing, preen its downy feathers, blink its eyes, and i even saw it yawn.

at dusk it went from branch to branch, starting to listen for critters to hunt. by the time it was dark i had lost track of where it was, but a few hours later, it came back to perch on the edge of our campsite again, and was joined by its nestmate a few minutes later. they were uncannily different in their facial features considering they were siblings. it was incredible to see the two of them perched one above the other, watching us sit around our cookfire. they stayed for a while, but left before we had jiffypop for dessert.

the next day i hiked with quinn up an elk trail to the top of the nearest ridge. i also got to eat thimbleberries, which i haven’t had since i lived in washington 6 years ago. quinn loves the tent- it is a nice den for naps, and also a handy playpen where the dirt/twigs/rocks are not available to go in his mouth if we need to be doing something else besides removing leaf litter from his hands.

quinn’s latest new trick is pivoting on his belly to go after toys that are behind him.

8/1-8/8

quinn’s lower left front tooth is making its way into the world, and is about halfway there. his lower right front tooth is now cutting through too, and seems likely to come in just as quickly.

quinn now rolls over very competently, and i have seen him purposely roll with the intention of getting something- his binky was on the bed next to the wall, and he rolled over to get to it, and stuck it in his mouth. he also rolls while i change his diaper sometimes, and makes it interesting getting him changed or dressed.

we went to mom and baby yoga and quinn was extremely active. the 5 month old baby next to us was content to lie on his back and play or nap, but quinn wanted to be doing what maya, the 10 month old across from us, was doing. he and maya had a great time facing each other on their bellies, wiggling and pushing up and talking. maya is much more fine tuned in some of her movements, while quinn is more of the approach of “i’m going for it! let’s see hwat happens when i fling this limb over that way!” he is determined to move, that much is clear. he wiggles and lunges and lurches enough now that he does actually go places on his belly- whatever that is called. scooching? creeping? belly crawling? he is amazing to watch in action and it is exciting to see him developing all of these new moves.

8/9-8/15

this week was eventful- we spent most of it on a sheep farm on the outskirts of eugene, oregon, putting on the northwest world reggae festival. dada is one of the organizers, and he was both in charge of the 60 vendors, and assistant sound engineer, not to mention his general usefulness because of his tools and handyman skills. i was mostly a mommy this year but helped out where i could. last year we had 110 degree weather and no shade- this year a beautiful 80 degrees and lots of wonderful trees to camp and enjoy music under. it was cool to think back to a year ago when quinn was just a bean and i was craving chicken soup in the hot weather!

quinn loves camping, so we knew he would enjoy that aspect of the festival, but we didn’t know how he’d do with so many people. it was a little worrisome when on wednesday and thursday as a slow trickle of crew and volunteer people started showing up, quinn kept getting upset whenever anyone talked to him or near him. he adjusted amazingly well and by the time 1800 guests arrived on the scene, he was all smiles.

he loved our campsite- taking naps in the tent and playing on the blankets on the ground. he goes straight to the perimeter of the blankets now, grabs fists full of dirt, moss and pine needles, and sticks them in his mouth. usually he doesn’t leave them in his mouth, occasionally he does but spits them out, and rarely do we have to help him get something out of his mouth. i don’t think he swallows any of it. the only thing i’ve seen him swallow besides milk is water, and that was just this week. he was bodhi drinking out of a cap of a water bottle and he wanted to try it out. he seemed surprised when he swallowed it.

the last few days of the festival quinn started using the “B” sound a lot- buh, bah, boo. i know he’s not trying to say “bottle” so maybe “booby” will be his first word. ha! while i’m on my radical kick- i beastfed bodhi! i had permission to use the boob if woke up on my “tent watch” while the rest of the parents were boogying down at the festival, and well, it worked like a charm! i’m sure i will get comments on this one (“gasp!”)

…back at home, quinn tried a few fingerfuls of avocado on tuesday and banana on wednesday- so far so good!

8/16-8/22

quinn tried applesauce on thursday (i made it myself- just organic apple, no sugar) and he turned his head away, so maybe we’ll try it again another day. he ended up eating some more avocado; he makes a face that looks like dislike, when he eats anything, but he goes after more so he clearly wants it! sometimes he will grab my hand or the finger the avocado is on, and inspect it visually, and then pull it into his own mouth. then he’ll sometimes suck on the finger as if it is an avocado nipple and sucking it might make more avocado come out. 🙂 on friday he had banana again, but he got kind of hyper afterwards, so we have to mix banana with other food i think.

on saturday, michele (dada’s sister) came up from california to visit. noah didn’t come meet his cousin yet- he is 20 months old, and traveling is not his strong point at the moment. but michele was great- quinn liked her a lot, and dad and i got to take a walk while she watched him. that night quinn had his first rice cereal (organic! with iron!) for dinner. sunday was a mellow day. michele and i were both knitting while dada carved a baby spoon for quinn and quinn took a big nap. then we all went to mt tabor for a walk. he tried out his new spoon that night on some avocado.

on monday, dada went to work but michele and quinn and i went to a yarn store for fun. before michele left that evening, she took pictures for us of quinn’s newest food adventure- peas! on tuesday and wednesday quinn and i went to work. by wednesday night he was so tired that when i took him out of the sling he was ready to go right back to sleep in the bed for a whole hour without even nursing.

8/23 6 MONTHS!!!

quinn and i were going to work today but we decided to stay home instead, both because it is his half birthday, and because he had a rough day yesterday at the lab (a hard time napping, kind of fussy all day so we left early). so we relaxed today and reflected on the last 6 months. my big boy is 22 pounds and 29 inches long.

quinn and daddy are bonding a lot recently. quinn is reaching out for dada to hold him more and more, and loves to play with him, listen to him play guitar, and bite his nose.

now that his 2 bottom teeth are in, we have started brushing his teeth- so far he likes it!

he ate a lot of avocado for his half birthday dinner. 🙂

mb

magic & bioluminescence

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