following the leader

wednesday mornings come out of nowhere! so much to do - so little time. behind on email, feeling pressure to work on my book (or — feeling ‘motivated’ if I give it the positive spin), big transition week at work - moving some areas to other people and starting a slew of new projects, and the list goes on. jack is better and was back to school yesterday - interesting discussion with him yesterday afternoon about following and leading - in the context of ‘follow the leader’ — what an interesting game to teach young children — what is the “Refuse to Follow the Leader!” alternative?

un triiio -

weekends in the city:sundays

jack still has a cough, fever, runny nose. daddy’s turn to stay home with him tomorrow.

last night aunt cindy and uncle lou played with a cranky jack while we (and our guilt) went to a book release party for Playing with the Boys - what an amazing book - written by two amazing women. we had a wonderful time and had great conversations about gender and sports and tried not to feel too guilty.

cancelled plans for today and jack and i stayed home and made our february calendar and practiced drawing ‘H’s’ and ‘Z’s’

weekends in the city

friday - home with jack - beginnings of a cold - cough, runny nose, cranky; friday night - rush to newbury street to see elyse one last time before she leaves for south carolina the back of my head is now shaved - yay! the woman who gives me my edge is leaving. jack and dad watched thomas - and i was told that there were lots of ’scary’ parts. the rescuers should be arriving in today’s netflix delivery (along with stardust!).

saturday begins at 4am - jack wakes up with a full sentence - “did you put golden compass back on your phone?” - and a fever to accompany his cough and runny nose. we are back up at 645 and downstairs watching peep by 7am - parents incredibly groggy-eyed and desperate for cups of tea - jack thrilled to think about phases of the moon along with joan cusack and quack, peep, and chirp. chirp is a sarcastic and questioning robin - i identify. still hoping to get to the ica…

already wednesday?

just caught up on last week’s email(!) and maybe the week before’s…yes, february begins next week - times like this I wonder how I accomplish anything!

our first peapod delivery arrives tonight - how exciting (note - highly recommended for crazed families)

will NOT be attending the annual MWPC event tonight.

my hair ’stylist’ (elyse) of 17 years(!!) is leaving boston and I am devastated. Friday night will now be spent on Newbury street saying my goodbyes - we started out together in the south end in 1990/91.

Plans for Saturday: ICA PLAY DATE: When Art Meets Music! (beautiful place for kids! and flour is right around the corner)

un trio — hats

it’s been a cold january - windchill in the ‘below zero’ category this am — we’ve become a bit obsessed with HATS — also, a nice project I can knit up in a weekend, make up as I go along, use up extra yarn, etc. left to right: photo taken by me of a hat I made this weekend, self-portrait by ernesto - wearing his ‘tank girl’ hat, and photo taken by jack -of me, wearing a hat I made while we were in maine - altered rowan pattern, e. lavold chunky al(paca) yarn

weekends in the city: meeting curious george

we met curious george today! cindy, jack, and i went to wgbh for a special kids saturday and had a blast - a goodie bag of fun stuff, screenings of peep and the big wide world and curious george, and a photo op with the big CG himself. jack was a bit overwhelmed by the whole hoopla of it all but he seemed to enjoy taking it all in. lots of kids with messy hair and striped cotton leggings. this was gbh’s first of these and they plan to have many more. what an amazing space for bringing together a large group of kids.

scratching

this week was all about ’scratching’ or ‘not scratching’ at pre-school. when i got to jack’s school this afternoon - the first thing he said to me was ‘mama, i didn’t scratch today’ - and he nearly broke my heart. when i think discipline, i can only think foucault and i wonder why/how we do it/don’t do it. is discipline de-humanizing or humanizing?

apple-tizers

on tuesdays, jack and I hurry home to unpack our weekly box of produce from Boston Organics. this past week, jack had been anxiously awaiting the arrival of apples -having eaten the last of them on saturday morning - and he was thrilled to find some in the box. as we ate our pre-dinner snacks, he dubbed them ‘apple-tizers’ - pure moss-ism.

snow day!

we woke up to a snow day here in boston! yippee - a great opportunity to try out jack’s new snow pants and mittens from lands end. snow photos to come.

 note - we did NOT end up making a snowman - as jack told one of my coworkers ‘the snow wouldn’t stick together’ - big build up for that snowman — we did have a snow(ball) fight and jack made a snow angel and a castle. he also tried to make a ‘beaver home’ - he has been making ‘beaver homes’ out of books, ‘bones’ of leftover toast, piles of toys, etc. so — we may not post snow photos on sunday