I had to tear myself away from Inauguration coverage today to work lunch duty at my son’s school, but seeing this sign in person made it all worth it:

In school the other day, Ben made an image of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington, DC. His teacher emailed to tell us that Ben created a text box to quote MLK saying “I have a dream that little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and girls and walk together as brothers and sisters.” “He wrote the quote from memory,” his teacher reported, “and everything was spelled correctly and he used quotation marks. Wow!”

I’m not so surprised by his accurate use of quotation marks, really (he didn’t live through the copyediting of a book for nothing), but pleased that he knows the lines and understands what they mean.

We didn’t participate in today’s National Day of Service, as we had hoped, because Ben was still too sick when we would have needed to sign up, but we’ve been talking about MLK, Jr. a lot around here and this morning Ben drew another picture, this time with no text, in honor of the day. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with after we watch the Inauguration tomorrow.

We have a computer in the kitchen which is essentially our stereo (thank you, iTunes) and which Ben uses to compile important airline facts, look at airplane designs, and occasionally do some writing. The other day I saw this on screen:

RULES*

1. No one near the stage, otherwise the puppets will be scared and the show will stop immediately.

2. The theater is not a play area.

3. No screaming or yelling.

4. If the intermission is longer than expected, no saying, “I wonder when this awful intermission will be over?”

5. No running.

*If you hear a whistle blow, one of the rules has been broken.

I think I’ll go out and buy a whistle.

Mariah has arrived and the boys are delighted, as you might be able to tell from how they decorated her bedroom door: a couple airplanes, a cable car on the Mariah Street/Gruner Avenue line, and many, many bows. They are still surprised by the sleeping habits of a teenager, curious about her vegan eating habits, but most of all thrilled by her presence and the excuse to use Skype now to chat with her family. What took us so long? We can also Skype with friends on sabbatical in Paris, and if/when some other friends move to Delhi, we’ll work out the time difference and Skype with them, too.

I just hope at some point the novelty wears off enough that we can talk without the boys jumping up and down and launching rocket ships across the screen.

I’ve been busy this December, with a good week’s vacation in snowy Connecticut with my entire family (some pictures here) followed by three days at the annual Modern Language Association convention, reporting on the proceedings for Inside Higher Ed. You can read those articles here:

MLA Realities: Then and Now

The Quest for Balance and Support

Caring for Children and Their Parents

In the midst of all that, I watched an incredible documentary about how a group of Muslim and Christian women worked together to end Liberia’s fourteen-year civil war. Here’s an excerpt:

Ben and his friend were in the bedroom playing war. Because they are the kinds of boys they are, the game involved Legos and negotiation of the rules but very little discernible war play. Still, because I am the kind of mom I am, I suggested some other more friendly narratives in which to involve their Legos. Then three year-old Eli, who had been listening attentively to all sides of the conversation, shouted out his peace plan:

“All war, go home! Have dinner! Go to sleep!”

We laughed (me a bit ruefully) at Eli’s naiveté, but when I saw the new documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell (Gini Reticker, 2008) I reconsidered Eli’s approach.

You can read the rest of the column over at Literary Mama.

Every night at dinner, we take turns talking about our highs and lows for the day. Last night, with sushi and champagne to ring in the New Year, we asked the boys about their highlights (no need to think back over the lows) and their resolutions for the year.

Ben’s highlight: visiting France
resolution: to get a response from the people at Boeing when he sends in his designs and seating plans for a new 797 plane.

Eli’s highlight: visiting France and making his beloved pottery train in preschool
resolution: to visit a new city

Eli’s resolution will come true in April; we hope the folks at Boeing might feel sympathetic toward on an enthusiastic kid and send more than a form letter… stay tuned.

I was stunned yesterday to learn of the sudden death of Literary Mama columnist Ericka Lutz’s husband, Bill Sonnenschein. Ericka had been writing recently about a new and exciting stage in their marriage as Bill’s career took him to Madagascar. The family was there together for the holidays when Bill passed away. Ericka’s most recent column, Holding, is a beautiful and now terribly sad tribute to their relationship:

A painting I did the first year Bill and I were together shows a field of green. In the center there’s a floating bed, and in the middle of the bed two people, face to face, stare into each others’ eyes and hold each other. That was what we were like those first years. We held each other and saved each other and were each other’s everything.

Time passed, and of course we changed; we had to, and it was appropriate that we did. We moved out into our own worlds, but we kept that connection. Night after night Bill slept next to me, his warmth just inches away.

Please visit Literary Mama to read the rest.

Usually by Christmas Eve, I’ve baked at least half a dozen batches of cookies, but this year for a change, the kids and I made candy for their teachers: salted chocolate pecan toffee, spiced chocolate bark with dried cherries and pumpkin seeds, and, now that we’re in snowy Connecticut, a kind of maple candy called jack wax.

It’s always a bit of a nostalgia trip for me to come to Connecticut, where I relive with my boys some of the farm and garden life I experienced as a kid with my grandparents. In the summer, we gorge on fresh berries and vegetables from the garden. In the winter, we plan our meals around what my Dad’s put up in the freezer. The boys start every day with a bowl of thawed frozen berries, and we continue from there, pulling from pantry and freezer, making soups with the squash, chili with the dried beans, gratins with the potatoes, pastas with the frozen chard, broccoli, beans and peas.

This winter, we’ve arrived to find over a foot of fresh snow on the ground and plenty of last year’s syrup in the pantry, and so I finally got to teach the boys how to make a snack I first read about in Little House in the Big Woods. As a Christmas treat, Ma Ingalls boiled up molasses and sugar (it was too early in the year for fresh maple syrup) and Pa brought in two skillets full of fresh snow; Mary and Laura drizzled the thick syrup over the snow to make candy. My siblings, cousins and I did this with our grandparents when we were kids, but it’s likely been thirty years since I’ve eaten fresh maple candy. All you need is a cup of syrup and some fresh snow.

Boil the syrup until it comes to about 240 degrees on a candy thermometer, or let a drop fall from your spoon into a cup of cold water to test; it should form a soft ball. Drizzle over a pan of fresh snow. Eat.

Ben and his friend were in the bedroom playing war. Because they are the kinds of boys they are, the game involved lego and much discussion but very little discernible war play. Still, because I am the kind of mom I am, I suggested some other more friendly narratives in which to involve their lego. Eli listened attentively and then offered his peace plan:

“All war, go home! Have dinner! Go to sleep!”

My late father-in-law was an artist. After attending art school on the G. I. Bill, he and his wife moved to Italy for two years so that he could paint and study. When the couple returned to California, his career blossomed with several shows a year, including a solo exhibition at San Francisco’s M. H. de Young Memorial Museum. But then his public career quieted, his output slowed; he shifted to smaller, more saleable projects like jewelry and jigsaw puzzles. I never understood this sharp turn in a successful career – had there been a devastating review? – until my first child was born and it occurred to me one day to map Jim’s career against his children’s birthdates. And there it was: sons born in 1967 and 1969; a rush of shows in 1969 and then fewer and fewer until just two in 1972, one in ’76, and then nothing for twenty years. It wasn’t the critics, I realized, but the kids.

…..

I hadn’t really thought about the constraints of space and materials that visual artists work with until I watched Pamela Tanner Boll’s moving new documentary Who Does She Think She Is? (2008), which introduces us to several mother-artists and asks why, when making art and raising children are both crucial for our culture, it is so hard to do both. The film wants us to know about these mothers making art, and it puts their stories in the larger context of all women artists. Like all women, women artists find their work less well-known and less well-compensated than the work of their male contemporaries. Like all mothers, mother artists endure isolation from their peers, sleep deprivation, and myriad claims on their time which make it difficult to continue their careers. But they do.

Read more at Literary Mama!