Casa Camisas

Loving and Leaving Pittsburgh: The Phipps Conservatory

March 30, 2008March 29, 2008 brookeshelf5 Comments

Jeffrey and Eleanor were on spring break this week, and I thought we’d take advantage of the spare time to see the always-gorgeous spring flower show at the Phipps Conservatory. I always try to take some good photos of the kids with the flowers; this is the third year in a row that I’ve done such portraits.

So many memories of this place! It was one of the places I visited on my first trip to Pittsburgh, back in May 2001. Brian and I were absolutely enchanted with the butterfly forest.

Over the years, I’ve learned a few hints about visits — go as early as possible to get a good parking spot, watch out for puddles, and never never never pay them a visit on Good Friday. The crowds are horrid on that day.

Just before Eleanor was born, I took Jeffrey for a visit on that fated day, and it was so stressful. He kept dashing ahead of me (he was only 2 1/2 then) and with my huge tummy, I could barely keep up. There were a large number of senior citizens there, and I was afraid that he was going to knock somebody over. We were attracting curious looks, stares, and a few not-so-quiet “Humph!”s all through the gardens.

Worst of all, there were two particular ladies that we kept running into over and over again. Every time I had to beg their pardon, I could feel my face getting redder.

I decided to cut the visit short and get out of there, when Jeff decided to run into the gift shop to take a look at the toys and — aaa! — expensive glass objets d’art. Lo and behold, who should be there at the botanical soap display other than those two same ladies again.

But before I could apologize once more for Jeffrey’s behavior, they both smiled and shook their heads.

“Such a good baby you have,” one of them said. “Most babies wouldn’t want to walk that far without being carried. He went the whole way through without crying to be picked up once.”

Oh!

I’m sure I wasn’t able to mumble much more than a thank-you before running off to catch Jeffrey once again. If only those ladies knew how much their kind words meant to me!

Jeffrey’s behavior has improved much since then. He and Eleanor were a couple of clowns for these photos. Whenever I sat them down and raised the camera, they immediately began to tickle, hug, and make silly faces at me and each other. They are such good buddies!

William, on the other hand, had a bad cold, so he didn’t get photographed much beyond this:

But he’s still awfully cute, wouldn’t you say?

In Which Jeffrey Buckles and Swashes

March 29, 2008March 29, 2008 brookeshelfLeave a comment

We’re still watching old movies around here. Today a DVD of The Adventures of Robin Hood arrived in the mail, and Jeffrey and watched it together while the other kids napped.

This is the old one with Erroll Flynn, and is considered by many to be the best version of the story. I have to say that I was a bit apprehensive, because every time I’ve tried to watch this before, I’ve found it a snore. But now I realize that that was due mainly to the fact that I had only watched blurry VHS versions before, with horrid muffled sound.

The restored DVD is sooo gorgeous — it looks like the old N.C. Wyeth illustrations springing to full Technicolor life. The pacing didn’t drag a bit. Olivia de Hamilland wears a differently-colored lamé dress in each of her scenes. Erroll Flynn takes out about seven baddies with a deer carcass. A deer carcass. What’s not to love? And really, I consider a film like this to be essential for cultural literacy. This movie has all the original action film clichés, before they were clichés:

The footmen with such bad aim they couldn’t hit the sidewalk with a can of paint!
Cutting the rope of the portcullis and then riding the rope as it goes up!
Ambushing the bad guys’ wagon train while swinging down on handy forest vines!
Swordfighting insults! (“You’d best say your prayers, Robin Hood!” “I’ll say a prayer for YOU, Sir Guy!”)
Bad guys who get hit with arrows under the arm, roll their eyes upwards, and clutch their chests while drooping slowly to the ground!
Characters whose clever disguise consists entirely of a heavy cloak that doesn’t conceal their faces in the least!
“Guards! Guards! After him!”
A duel that features shadows on the wall, candles being cut in half, and the villain’s secret spare knife!
DRAMATIC CAAAAAPES!

I was a little worried that Jeffrey might find all of this a bit boring, but whoa, was I wrong. He got into it even more than he got into Star Wars, and that’s really saying something. The excitement was up to the extent that we had to take occasional intermissions so he could use the bathroom more often.

The best part, though, was watching Jeffrey play “Robin Hood” with Eleanor for a good while just before bed. Armed with his foam pirate sword, he embarked on a lengthy duel with Daddy (who was able to conduct his swordfighting while lounging on a cushion). Later, he asked Daddy to hold a green blanket “vine” so he could “swing” off of it — and immediately after, he aimed a few more blows at him. (Said Brian, “What? I’m the scenery and the bad guy?”)

Jeffrey insisted on sheathing his sword inside of his pants. Eleanor, of course, tried to follow suit, despite the fact that her toy sword was twice her height. I’ll just let you imagine what that looked like.

Just before bed, Eleanor (who insisted that she was not Little John or Maid Marian but just Eleanor) was using building blocks to “play the violin” and was busy singing a song about Little Red Riding Hood.

Jeffrey, who was sitting on my lap, immediately began to whisper in my ear.

“Mommy, I think she’s singing a song about me.”

Oh, right — Little Red Robin Hood. Ha!

There Went Peter Cottontail

March 25, 2008 brookeshelf3 Comments

I could tell you about the choir, and the pretty flowers, and the beautiful Story. I could tell you about the lovely ham dinner, and putting actual tulips into my tulipiere vase for the first time, and how our alarm clocks didn’t go off on time, and how we had to scramble to church in the morning. I could tell you about the lemon-coconut cake, and how nervous I was playing the special arrangement of “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” on the organ.

I could tell you about all that.

But I know what you REALLY want to see is cute kids decked out in their Easter clothes. And who am I to resist the demands of my readers?

The kids were thrilled to find the baskets the Easter bunny had left for them. Of course, they pretty much just got to see them in the morning before we hustled them to the car and church. And I mean hustled — we had to eat our breakfast of cinnamon rolls in the car to make it on time.

When we got home, I took them outside for some pictures of the Easter finery. They had fun tromping around the garden, even though it’s not much more than a pile of sticks.

I kept trying to get them to smile at the camera at the same time. Harder than it looks — Eleanor would usually keep her smile long enough for me to snap it, but Jeffrey kept grinning briefly and then darting out of the frame, or look somewhere else.

Have I mentioned how much I love Eleanor’s dress? So springtime-y. I’m a sucker for anything that has a smocked rosebud bodice. She loves any excuse to wear one of her “big dresses.”

In the afternoon, I let the kids handle their chocolate bunnies. Instead of eating them right away, they spent a long time playing “bunny village” with them, and making them hop around and have conversations together. This picture simply cannot capture how adorable this was.

Jeffrey was very enamored of his bunny. He wanted me to take many pictures of him with it . . .

. . . so I was surprised when I glanced away for a moment, and then saw that Jeff’s bunny now looked like this:

Jeffrey said, “Oh, yes, he’s dying. My bunny is suffering.” Suffering, eh? I think he picked up that word from the Easter story he heard in his Primary class at church. I’m not sure if I would want to know how tangled the idea of Easter is to Jeffrey right now — a mishmash of religion and candy.

Mmmm. Sacrilicious.

On the Bunny Trail

March 22, 2008 brookeshelfLeave a comment

The Saturday before Easter, to me, is the right time for all the secular bunny-bunny stuff. Not that I don’t set out baskets of goodies for my kids on Sunday morning. But it’s Saturday when we go to the church and have the egg hunt, and Saturday evening is when we dye eggs.

In honor of that, I’m posting a bit of vintage film goodness that my kids have been going crazy for.

The first is from Easter Parade, which we Netflixed last week. Eh, it wasn’t quite as successful as the other musicals we’ve watched (the plot is confusing, the dialogue boring) but it does begin with a fabulous Fred Astaire number called “Drum Crazy.” It’s perfect for springtime, although I must warn you that this song may stick in your head for a while (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing):

The second film is a Disney Silly Symphony called “The Funny Little Bunnies.” It shows rabbits decorating eggs and carving chocolate bunnies, and my kids really, really (no, really) love watching it. Perhaps this is because it showcases a style of animation so different from what we see today — the cyclical, repetitive motions, the symmetrical movements across the screen, the panoramic shots with dozens of figures scurrying around — it’s as if the universe is performing mitosis.

My two cents: I love that kilt-wearing bunny painting the tartan egg. C’est bon.

Gotta Match?

March 20, 2008March 21, 2008 brookeshelf6 Comments

It’s the first day of Spring!

(ahem)

No, no. I said that wrong. Let’s try again:

It’s the First Day of SPRIIINNNNNNNG!

To me, there’s an inherent zaniness attached to the first day of Spring that doesn’t come with the other seasonal changes. The first day of Winter is claimed by earthy/granola/Wicca types who wanna wish you a Merry Solstice. The first day of Summer is anticipated by characters in the Great Gatsby, Shakespeare enthusiasts, and not much else. The first day of Autumn? Please.

But the first day of spring — that’s the day when life goes strange, goofy, loop-de-loop. Or could. The earth is shuffling off its slushy, ice-bound coil. The idea of warmth adds an extra zing of energy to every movement, every growth. Once the first signs of spring begin to appear — in Pittsburgh, that would be the miraculous, overnight filling of the winter’s crop of potholes — everything’s coming up daisies, and it’s crazy.

It’s also Match Day.

(ahem)

No, no — let’s try that again:

MATCH DAAAAAAAY!

The day on which the nation’s graduating medical students find out where they are going for residency! A residency which, depending on the specialization, could last anywhere from three to seven years! And — this is the kicker — it’s all decided via a COMPUTER PROGRAM. Matching up brand-new doctors with hospitals, a la an electronic dating service. Only, when an e-date goes wrong, it only lasts an evening (or, when it goes really wrong, an hour). If you end up in a residency program you don’t like, it could last YEARS. And there’s nothing you can do about it, unless you’ve suddenly decided that you DON’T want to be a doctor after all.

So today, all of the graduating members of Brian’s med school class filed into an auditorium (where the “Matchmaker” song from Fiddler on the Roof was playing on the speakers, alas) and waited for the dean of the school to announce names and hand out little white envelopes with a printout of where we were headed.

We were lucky — Brian was one of the first twenty people called up, so we didn’t have to sit in agony while the other 150 people in his class went wild & crazy and tore up little envelopes with their teeth before heading out to toss back a few at a pub.

We are going . . . . to the University of Utah!

(ahem — oh, whatever)

THE UNIVERSITY OF UUUUUUTAAAAH!

(hooray!)

It was a little anti-climactic for us, since we were pretty darn confident that this was what our printout was going to say. Brian and I had geared ourselves up for a shock, and how to deal with it gracefully (“Oh, Seattle! How dandy!) that when we saw that we had gotten what we expected, we just stared at it, going “Huh. Look at that.”

That’s the first day of spring for you, right there. Oh, and did I mention that Jeffrey had to come straight to the ceremony after undergoing oral surgery? And was still all woozy from the anesthetic, and so kept simultaneously falling asleep while applauding? Oh, and that the ceremony also included a med-school tradition that involved a goldfish bowl full of dollar bills? Yeah — the students fill up the bowl as they come up for the envelopes. Whoever has their name called last gets to keep the money. And is then expected to spend it all buying drinks for the rest of the class. (Ah, the doctors of tomorrow. Drinking tonight like there isn’t one.)

Part of me is a little wistful now, since it’s really beginning to hit home that we are leaving Pittsburgh, really leaving. I’ve lived here longer than I’ve lived anywhere else in my entire life, although it doesn’t seem that way. (Each year of high school seemed just as long as the seven years I’ve spent here.) All day we’ve been fielding phone calls and e-mails from our ‘burgh friends, all asking about residency, all excited to hear the news. This afternoon, red-and-white balloons appeared on our doorstep — the Utah colors.

(“In Spring . . . and the goat-footed balloon man whistled far and wee . . .”)

But I’m very happy — weirdly happy, like I can’t quite believe how perfectly things have worked out for us. When we called our mothers on the phone, Brian’s whooped and hollered, and mine cried with joy. I’m glad they were able to show the emotions that I felt pretty sure I would have upon learning Il Destino, but somehow didn’t. I suppose that’s why I’m happy about moving closer to family: they always manage to support you through your shortcomings, even in the most unexpected ways.

This summer: Beehive State or Bust!

White House Mama

March 19, 2008March 19, 2008 brookeshelfLeave a comment

Jeffrey keeps asking a certain question:

“Mommy, are you running for President?”

This was at dinner a few days ago, and Brian reported hearing the same question during Jeffrey’s bath last week. “Is Mommy running for President?”

I suppose that Jeffrey’s been hearing enough election talk that it’s beginning to seep into his daily thoughts. Also, he keeps requesting that we read So, You Want to Be President every now and then, so he understands the basic concept of Being President. Oh, I love this kind of kid-flattery — when they honestly believe that you are capable of doing something like a Presidential campaign on-the-side. Just something I work on during, say, naptime. It was a little sad to set him straight. Looking at him across the dinging room table, I say:

“No, Jeffrey. I’m not running for President.”

“Why?” Hmm. No idea how to answer this truthfully — “I’d be really bad at it” — without leading to a score of other questions that need increasingly abstract, detailed answers. So, I bounced back at him with another question.

“Jeffrey, do you think I should be President?”

“Yeah.”

“Why do you think I would be a good President?”

“Because,” he says solemnly, “you’re good at talking to people and things.”

Heh. Talking to people — strangers, anyway — is one of the things I’m notoriously bad at . . . er, well. I’m not that bad at it. Let’s just say I’m one who loathes small talk. (LOOOOOOATHES.) But Jeff’s a little young to figure that out yet. I suppose that, to him, his mother is VERY good at navigating that Mysterious World of Adults and their Frightfully Dull Talk.

“Hmm,” chimes in Brian at this point. “Jeffrey, maybe you should be on Mom’s exploratory committee.”

“Yeah,” I say, tickled with this idea. “Can you find out if I should be President?”

“Yes,” Jeff replies, all seriousness as we leave the dinner table and begin trundling upstairs. “The first thing I’ll do is find out what George Washington does.”

Righto, Jeff. Remind me to look for that report in 2012.

Oh, and here’s the book I mentioned above:

So, You Want to Be President by Judith St. George, illus. David Small. George’s text is an entertaining account of traits that our nation’s presidents have had over the years — the oldest, the pets, who really was born in a log cabin, as opposed to just saying they were — but what really shines here are Small’s masterful caricatures of them all. From a twinkly-eyed Lincoln to a Taft with a tummy bigger than Rhode Island, it’s a glorious tongue-in-cheek yet loving tribute to the Chiefs. Oh, and the pictures won a Caldecott. Yada, yada, yada.

No, It Isn’t Ironic

March 18, 2008March 18, 2008 brookeshelf1 Comment

I just discovered the blog Judge a Book By Its Cover. It’s written by a public librarian who keeps track of all the horrible book covers she runs across, and gleefully mocks them. It’s a bit too raunchy for my tastes, but a quick scroll down produced this lil’ tidbit of gold:

finer-points-on-the-spacing-and-arrangement-of-type.jpg

Yes, it is a real, honest, non-sarcastic book. Probably one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in a while — I’m adding it to my mental list of Bad-Good Book Titles (which also include Build Your Own Strativarius Violin and Really Bad Girls of the Bible). Thank you, lousy typographer!

To Thine Own Delf Be True

March 17, 2008March 16, 2008 brookeshelfLeave a comment

Eleanor has trouble pronouncing the letter s. She pronounces it like a d, especially when it’s the first sound in a word.

“Mommy, I want some dissors. To dip something.” Translation: “Mommy, I want some scissors. To snip something.” This takes a little bit of extra processing on my part, and Brian’s, too. We keep trying to correct her (“It’s ssssssnip, Eleanor,”) and she keeps trying to say it the right way (“ssssssDip”) but the going is slow.

The word we hear mispronounced most often is the word “self,” as in “I did it all by my delf!” Eleanor has a habit of bragging about her independence at inopportune moments, too:

After kicking and squalling while being buckled into her car seat: “Mommy! I got buckled all by my delf!”

Or, when we are pouring her some milk, and she suddenly grabs the jug, spilling milk everywhere: “I poured a drink all by my delf!”

Worst of all, when our toilet training efforts backfire: “Mommy! I made a poopy in my diaper — all by my delf!”

Well, I guess it’s a good thing she didn’t actually need assistance doing that. But still.

Brian and I have therefore been categorizing Eleanor’s growing independence in two ways. First, there’s when she actually does something good by herself (like hanging up her coat on her hook, or setting the table. Then there’s the stuff she does All By Her Delf. And those are the moments that we are learning to fear. I’m sure there will come a time when simply hearing the word “delf” won’t make my heart beat faster, but it hasn’t happened yet. All I can do is have patience, pray, and hope she won’t drive me Indane.

Balloon Fancy

March 16, 2008 brookeshelfLeave a comment

Tonight we went out to eat, and Jeffrey and Eleanor were given balloons at the restaurant.

Eleanor’s balloon popped about ten minutes after we arrived back at home — she sat on it (and then cried inconsolably) — but Jeffrey spent quite a few minutes lying on his back in his bedroom, quietly gazing at it while occasionally tugging on its string. What was he doing?

“I’m just fishing for clouds in the sky, Mommy.”

Can’t help but think of this book:

The Blue Balloon by Mick Inkpen. Yeah, it’s by the same guy who gave us the Kipper books, which I’ve always been kind of meh about. But I really adore The Blue Balloon — basically, it tells the story of a boy who finds a balloon on the street, which turns out to have all kinds of “strange and wonderful” properties. It’s unbreakable, can change shape, and even carries the boy into outer space. Inkpen’s ink-and-watercolor illustrations are simple yet expressive; best of all, he uses the occasional fold-out or pop-up device to show how wonderful a balloon really can be. A storytime read-aloud staple for pretty much every child librarian I know.

Oh, and I HAVE to mention this one. How could I forget it?

Emily’s Balloon by Komako Sakai. This Japanese import has a quiet magic very different from The Blue Balloon. Little Emily is given a balloon while out with her mother. She returns home to play with it, and it slowly becomes a friend — weighted down by one of Emily’s spoons, it bobs along right at her eye-level. Emily makes a flower crown for the balloon, and talks to it in the backyard. But then a gust of wind blows the balloon into a tree, and Emily is distraught. She tearfully describes how she had planned to help the balloon get ready for bed — but then sees the balloon outside her window, is struck by how it reminds her of the moon, and goes to sleep content. Soft yellow-and-grey charcoal illustrations are placed gracefully on the page; not a single stroke is wasted. This was probably my favorite picture book of 2006. Read it to your toddler, and it might become your favorite, too.

Broadcasts and Woodworking Tips

March 15, 2008March 13, 2008 brookeshelfLeave a comment

This afternoon, while sitting in the front seats of the (parked) car and gazing in the mirror, Jeffrey fiddled with the radio dials and said this:

“Good morning, listeners! The forecast for today is that Jeffrey and Mommy will look in the mirror!”

I’m guessing that he hasn’t figured out that a “forecast” refers to things that are going to happen.

Later, at bedtime:

“Mommy! I can’t go to sleep without Bat Tiger! I need him close to him so he can get snuggles and kisses!”

Here I should explain that Bat Tiger is just that — a stuffed tiger wearing a Batman outfit, the product of a Grandma-sponsored trip to the Build-A-Bear Workshop. I fished Bat Tiger out of the nest of blankets Jeff habitually keeps on his top bunk and placed him on Jeffrey’s pillow.

“Is Bat Tiger a superhero?” I asked.

“No, he’s my assistant,” he replied matter-of-factly. “He helps me build forts, except for one time when he got sick because he didn’t have his goggles.” Jeffrey traces circles around his eyes with his fingers, to show what he meant. Goggles. Goggles?
“Yeah. See, I needed to shave some wood for the fort, and sand and polish it, and Bat Tiger didn’t have his goggles on and his eyes got hurt.”

I love that my son is safety-conscious in his fantasy play. Good old Bat Tiger.