W

Funny how viewing a single letter makes an impact.

Marcello wakes up requesting that we go to the W, a posh hotel where we met Carmen and Manuel for drink last night. Comfortable and beautiful, the lounge was not where he wanted to hang out. Where did he end up? Right by the front desk where he charmed the woman into letting him hold the big glass W logo. Heartbroken he could not abscond with it, he scored a piece of stationary with a W cut into it and a purple gel pen.

For You

Who gave with your heart
simple joys like
taking a walk in the park
drawing a picture
laughing at a movie

Who taught by your example
more than what, but how
at the time I did not grasp
your courage and vision

Six years now without you
wanting dreams with you
trying to conjure
the feeling you gave me

love spilled over
into my own hands
their softness now caresses
your grandson

Rayuela

SO they had begun to walk about in a fabulous Paris, letting themselves be guided by the nighttime signs, following routes born of a clochard phrase, of an attic lit up in the darkness of a street's end, stopping in little confidential squares to kiss on the benches or look at the hopscotch game, those childish rites of a pebble and a hop on one leg to get into Heaven, Home. ~Julio Cortázar

Yikes!

Not a single photo of Stefanito without a game in hand. . .

When You are in Miami

You eat a lot of Peruvian food in little strip malls. These restaurants sell products that make certain husbands say that it is a paradise here. That and there are Cuban bakeries with the chaos of Latino families and arroz (morros y christianos)con maduros. There are lovely meals at long tables where the children all end up eating ice cream.

llama la llama

In Peru they say the llama calls, meaning your blood or your kin. Marcello loved and was loved. . .

Miami Trip

Going to the airport tonight with M & M; we will have 5 days in Miami. What we do there: Eat Peruvian food. Adore the kids. Drink and eat some more. Plan the next meal. See a movie.

I will try to practice driving there where the weather is good! I will miss seeing Rebel, Benj, and Nika this year as they have relocated. I will also miss my family this year.

Increasing the Socioeconomic Diversity

I talked to a mother at the Playhouse on Friday about her concerns for her children who are African American. We seem to share an interest in increasing diversity within quality educational programs for our children. This is common among progressive multicultural leaning folks I talk to, but the concern is that children get to know others (like or not like themselves): kids of color, mixed backgrounds, and from a variety of backgrounds, including diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.

I would love to see the best schools with alternative-education (not buying into banking models of education) like Waldorf, Montessori, or schools with play-based curriculum, and so on increase the diversity of their student populations. I do not mean a few token scholarships either because who knows about those, but I wish school administration, parents, and staff would more actively work to recruit students who are not only "like themselves" so that everyone is able to access quality education from a young age.

Calendars

Marcello is talking about them and making them with his foam letter squares. When asked what a calendar is or what a calendar has, he responds, "Chocolate!"

I had him take one chocolate out at a time on his advent calendar for one morning. That calendar didn't last more than 2 days!

email

Such a curious way to communicate these days. It is one of the great things about living far away from family and friends in this age.

I got a rough one at 4am that kept me up from the neighbor below. Don't ask why I was up. These days I fall asleep in Marcello's bed exhausted. I woke up and checked.

The email from our downstairs neighbor states that it is pretty unpleasant to live under us and that we are very loud. She starts off with how loud and late the workers were here and goes into how my son cries so loud and what heavy feet he has. She says that she understands how difficult it is to be a mother, but she has her daughter in bed at 9pm and doesn't want to hear noise after 9:30.

If I could have minimized this noise, I would have. I feel sorry, but I also feel that some of what is happening is beyond my control. We have been trying to change M's sleep patterns and working hard to find a solution. I also don't like his going to bed so late, but he is exhausted after his long day where he does not sleep and takes a late nap. I am trying to eliminate that nap and to get area rugs. I will try to do my best.

I know we all try to do the best for our children & wrote her back with this sentiment.

Marcello Strikes Back

The below mentioned artwork has now been cut into a hundred little pieces.

Process Is Everything

I want to go back in a time machine to San Francisco circa 2002 and have Marcello attend the SF Children's Art Center. It was a time when I learned that ephemeral string
art and layered pieces of tape on the rug could be photographed. Using an overhead to create shadows of shapes could engage children in remarkable ways. If you stay out of the way long enough and provide materials and talk with children, you will learn about their processes of creation.

So another weird painting with Marecello's name on it arrived home. When I asked M "Who did that?" he would not answer. It has some big, solid lines throughout and places where they intersect to create spaces that have been neatly painted in. It has a zigzag in in that lasts about 3 Zs worth of zag. There are things he never does on his own. And this boy has a will to make lines and form them like letters.

I'm going to ask about the process they used.

Se Habla Español

I am supportive of M's growth in all languages that we introduce, but I feel the most free in expressing myself in English, my native language. I do want to:

Converse more at home
Read more books
Visit with family and friends
Listen to music & see films
Speak with Marcello's teachers (who speak Spanish)

in glorious español!

Latke Party

Marcello has asked several times for his own guitar. He hung out with all the musicians all night and pounded on the drum. He also made a percussion instrument out of a metal corkscrew and a butter knife. We wish would could see our gypsy music friends more often!

Shocking School

Mother Jones had an article that got me thinking. I am for inclusive education in all cases except for extreme ones. Having worked including with kids with severe disabilities in regular education and recreational settings, I feel it can be set up and done well; one example is the coteaching model they use here in NY.
What about those extreme cases? What is the purpose of this schooling? To apply electric shock to young people as we attempt to get them conforming? See the article that makes me look very fussy for my stance against prefab children's art.

children's art

Our current love is cutting letters out of paper, but playdough letters is a second runner up. I am so excited as I see Marcello's artistic processes being developed at the Playhouse. We see some beautiful watercolor versions of script that he has done at school, some collaboratively with another child.

Since I see the kind of artwork he does at home, it surprised me when Marcello arrived home today (from his afternoon program) with a pretty picture of a gingerbread house colored in neatly with all the pieces neatly glued in place and only his name on the paper. This kind of stuff makes me crazy. Why would any parent want to see artwork that looks like the adult made the stuff? I guess the product is valued more than the process by some. What are teachers thinking when this stuff passes for children's art? I need some Maxine Greene here; speaking of the imagination, she always emphasized how the experience opens possibilities of how things could be otherwise. Children have a direct line to that kind of consciousness.

I remember when my brother and I were small children we used to look under an end table we had, and we saw all these people and another universe. Years later, we looked underneath and saw only wood grain.

It would seem to me that we just need to get out of the way and provide materials and a good environment, for children are motivated to express. If I get another piece of some teacher's art, I may just cross out his name and send it back with a note saying I would rather not waste his time or the paper on coloring pages at school. Never one to bash teachers, I would hate to offend. This generating sameness is something I can get nasty about and the indifference to children's innate artistic sensibilities.

Beauty Can Never Be too Big

Our family photos sit and are reconfigured daily on the window sills in our living/dining room. Obsessed with letters, the big boy arranges them to create forms.

Marcello calls my mom "mama's mama"--sometimes the people in the photos are named, but sometimes they are just rearranged. Quirky and original, he always surprises. I want to celebrate the way that he expresses himself.

We heart Maria, Lily, & Erin

I went into 88 Franklin (as M likes to call it), aka the Playhouse, where I hung out with the kids and teachers. We are so lucky to have scored the teachers in that classroom. They showed the kids an imovie of them performing some songs, all improv, the other day. It feels like home there.

Snow, snowpants