afield

Unusually warm days of early Spring and planned outings has us all feeling like summer vacation started a bit early. The only strange thing is to be in shorts at the beach when the trees don't have any leaves yet.
I accompanied Miranda on her class trip which included her first ride on a school bus to a great place with a farm, a natural playground and a funky, interactive art exhibit.


I do love field trips and always plan at least a couple for my students. This week I took them to a sewage treatment plant, which is always enlightening, and a protected salt marsh on Long Island Sound. The photo above is of my students checking out a rock covered with recently spawned barnacles.


A friend organized a family hike today to a local shoreline and it was a beautiful day and I feel very lucky to have so many good friends that value taking their children to natural areas. I would have to say that reading to my kids and exploring the outdoors with them are my two favorite parenting activities (aside from smooches and reveling in their hilarity, of course).






Lastly, whenever I am out in natural areas many days over of a short period time, a theme emerges. Week of the spittle bugs, week of Spring Peepers peeping, etc. The changing storyline of nature is part of what keeps me intrigued. So, this week's theme was praying mantis egg cases, featured as the brown blob on marsh grass above. I saw them with my students earlier this week and with my family today. They have been there since last fall, but I haven't been in a lot of grassy places since last fall, so they seem very new to me.

our very happy fairy

Our little baby girl has turned three and her fairy (and wizards) birthday party was an event she has been dreaming about for quite a few months. Miranda loves details and talks about many of the little things that happened at her party.




The day after the party, I asked her what her favorite part was and she said "drinking punch out of fancy cups." The Universe helped me out a bit with an unexpected day off the week before the party and beautiful, warm weather the day of the party which allowed the magic show, cake cutting and the winding down of the party to take place outside.







All of the fairies decorated wings and the wizards decorated swords (its a stretch, I know). The kids who arrived early got their faces painted. The girls wore flower garlands and wings. We had a rockin' magic show that entertained adults and kids alike and included a lot of magically appearing bunnies, which Miranda loves.



We played some games including fairy freeze dance where all of the kids danced, freezing in place when the music shut off and Miranda unfroze them with her wand. The older cousins would wait in funny poses for her to unfreeze them to make it more fun for her.








As the planned activities winded down, the older kids played in the backyard and Miranda played play-doh with younger kids inside. It was a wonderful day and she was so excited about all of it. This last picture is from right before the party started, Miranda was singing a song that she made up about the party. Such a cutie, that Miranda!!

thoughts on the cusp of Spring

In one week, the vernal equinox will be here. The first day of Spring is also the day that Miranda was born.

Spring is full of promise.

Jove and Miranda have started the annual Spring ritual of re-discovering the backyard and its nooks and crannies of dirtiness.

The hunt for critters has begun with the compost pile as the first stop. Semi-hibernating millipedes, watch out!

Bike riding has resumed.

Seed packets have been bought and seedling trays are getting dusted off- the planting season is underway.

Daily dreams of summer vacation.

Buckling down with my students to get them (and me) through to the end. Grateful that AP tests are in May and then we can go the woods for the last month.

Standing back in awe of how much Jove and Miranda are changing and growing and I am enjoying them so much.

Really grateful that teaching, mothering and all other aspects of my life are happily co-existing and that I am learning to let go of non-essentials.

Happy that Jupiter and I have made time to do yoga, run, hike and take care of ourselves.

self-imposed blogatus

I must take a break from blogging for a few weeks to take care of business: planning a much awaited birthday bash for Miranda who'll be three soon and has been talking about her upcoming party since Jove's party last summer, finalizing summer travel plans and working on some (secret) creative endeavors that are using up all of the mental energy I have left after a full day of work and mothering. I will definitely report on Miranda's birthday and our efforts to stay excited about winter until Spring is here.

winter

recent events

Big family parties for Christmas at our house and New Year's Eve at Tati's house.

The New Year's Eve arrival of the much-beloved Andy from DR a little before midnight.

Miranda soaking up the attention from her cousins Chris and baby Jhaden.

A trip to a lodge with a water park in upstate New York which Jove loved.

Jove lost his first tooth.

Miranda spending a lot of time dancing with Daffy Duck during the kids events at the hotel: bedtime stories, welcome parties and crafts were all attended by costumed Looney Tunes characters. Miranda loved it.

Socratic thinking on the first day of a new decade

"the unexamined life is not worth living"

I have been thinking a lot about my personal convictions as I have returned to teaching in the last few months and my oldest child is starting to form his own opinions on deep matters. Jupiter and I have had many discussions lately about injustices and the need for more deep social change (as health care reform goes forward without a public option, as free subway passes may be taken away from NYC students who use them to get to school, etc.)

My time in the classroom can feel very personally fulfilling on some days and like a bit of a paperwork grind on others. I have received a few very touching letters from former students who are changing the world as adults and it excites me to no end that they felt inspired by their experiences in my classroom. But, I have been thinking more and more about expanding my work beyond the classroom (don't worry mom and dad, I won't quit my job) to encompass all of the aspects of myself and to genuinely reach out to more people. I retreated from front line political activism many years ago because of personal disillusionment with yelling and screaming and accomplishing very little. I also felt that more work needed to be done to create and inhabit the alternative to inhumane capitalism, sounds petty bourgeois I'm sure, since the working class does not get to choose to not be subject to inhumane capitalism. I digress, the point is, I feel now more than ever that I must personally work to impact the lives of more oppressed people.

So my goal for the next decade of my life is to work directly to help more people. How this is going to happen and where it will happen remain to be seen. I have ideas of projects I would like to work on or join such as taking disadvantaged teenagers into the wilderness to find themselves, starting an eco-tourism NGO in the Dominican Republic or creating an educational, organic farm that employs people and teaches sustainability. I have to do something that incorporates my need to teach, my love of nature, my desire to farm and my hope for a better world.

Some of things that are currently inspiring me include reading the works of and about the lives of great women (Mary Oliver, Virginia Lee Burton, Frida Kahlo, Margaret Sanger). Realizing that there are so many paths to making the world a better place and that my path is unfolding--- feels exciting and a tad bit overwhelming at the same time.

Watch out world!