Urban Organica

i have a (peace-full) problem...

With saving helpless creatures.  If you are scared of critters. Well.  You should stop here.  I apologize to those of you who may have been looking for recipes.  Maybe you could just close your eyes & scroll down?  

'Cause I just can't let a huge, gorgeous spider egg get smashed.  I can't. It's a miracle.  Did you read Charlotte's Web?  A miracle.  

But I do know that I go too far.  

The boy's warned me there was a black widow where all the kids were "fishing" for lizards.  And, there she was.  Holding a - no joke - 3/4" white ball.  As soon as she saw me she disappeared, so I couldn't dispose of her.  I do catch them, I should tell you, but not while the kids are watching.  And I take them far, far away.

But I did grab her egg & stuck it in a tall plastic cup.  My thought was that I would bring it down to the creek that afternoon.  But I forgot. And...

The next morning it had hatched.  About two hundred of them, right up to the top. Without a lid.  Ummm.  Oops. The boys thought they were soooo cute.  

Then life got crazy, so I found myself keeping baby black widow spiders for the next week, opening the lid & "airing them" by spinning in a circle twice a day.  No, I am not crazy.  I am a peace activist.

A lot of families keep scrapbooks.  We keep Conscious Objector/Family Values files. What are these?  An album full of photos of mentors, elders & friends who work for peace.  Fliers & schedules from events they attend that promote social justice.  Pictures of the kids doing things that honor the Earth, themselves & their communities.

If they choose to go to college, that's great, we've got the records to help them.  If they want to travel the world, they have a global community of elders, aunties & uncles to house them.  If they want to join the military, can do that with our blessing.  If they get drafted & feel like they object to it spiritually, then they have their CO files.  This is something our country supports, as they don't want soldiers unfit for battle...

So, with me as their mama, that's really always a possilibility.  I want them to know that while I am not the perfect example of peace, fiery wife & mama that I am, I do my best.  And I will go out of my way to honor life.

After a week of "baby-sitting,"  all the while wondering when they were going to turn on each other, actually, we got to the "Bug Museum."  Which had a note on the door, saying they were closed for the week.  I really had to evaluate what the heck I was doing.

And, this is not a funny post.  But feel free to laugh at me.  I'm okay with it.  I laugh at me lots.

We did some research on the flap display outside the door, confirming this was a goofy project.

And the boys thought they'd like to reproduce this display at our house, with our very own set of critters & creatures.  So, we will.  All those red tabs open up to show what lives in each micro-habitat, with a few facts about them.  

Just then a janitor came by & opened the door, revealing a bunch of grad students hunched over the stick bugs.  "Here!" I rushed in, "Babies.  Baby black widows.  They're a donation...from the boys."  I flashed my biggest smile & the boys gave a little wave.

Phew.

Then.  My compost got turned & we discovered 7 babies.

Look at them. I have no misunderstanding.  Those are baby mammals. With little heart beats, closed eyes, wrinkled skin, & mewing for their mama.  I couldn't let them go, even though our friend had tossed them behind a log pile to perish.  Yes, they are rats.  With closed eyes, they are under 5 days old, but with ears detached from their heads, they are more than 3.  So four days old, that meant they were born on Mother's Day.

We gathered them up & put them on a soft t-shirt in a protected planter near the compost pile.  The boys were awed to see they could barely move, but somehow each found a little sibling to cuddle up against.  And their mama came to get them & put them in a safe place.  

I just cannot let a bunch of nursing babies go.  Look at them.  I bet that mama was so relieved to find her 7 babies.

What's normal is to kill everything that's a danger to us, or a perceived danger.  What's natural, at least at our house, is to honor life to the extent that we can.

I don't dare compare children to bugs & vermin.  But kids do feel akin to little creatures.  I hope it all comes back 'round to me in the moments when my boys are being dangerous.  That life will honor life & keep them safe & sound.  

kool + sweet stuff

I love this outfit.  I wish it was mine.  Hand printed organic onesie + linen karate pants.  Wow.  

A fit almost as koo (cool) as the boy.  Look at him.  This is our buddy Mateo. He's the youngest in our "family" of baby buddies.  (Really my nephew Ravi is the youngest, but he lives in the Philippines.  I can't wait 'till he gets  here to meet all his other "kapatid." (siblings)) Teo's gorgeous mama up there is one of our best friends.  Look at the way she looks at him.  

It's a bummer that outfit won't get passed on to us, but I know it will keep on going.  At this point, anything I buy True goes on to 7 other kids.  Yeah, really.  And most of Real's cutest clothes come from his "brothers & sisters." 

In our culture, it doesn't matter if you're really related.  You're related because you say your related.  Family is a made-up excuse to give folks you like everything you've got.  

You should hear me when these kids get together, "Here Mahal, eh, True I mean Keo, I mean, Mateo, I mean, Free, Real, Mekhi, er, Lake, eh...Kaleo."  Luckily, we just treat them all the same.  Love, love, admiration.  Love.

The neighborhood kids decided to start excavating my yard for geodes.  They haven't found any, but my lawn is littered with distinct  & orderly pyramids of micah, granite, clay, sandstone & pebbles.

We're on an accidental rock unit.  We asked for an impromptu construction-zone tour yesterday.  They were digging up the water lines & we got to see how under the black top is a thick layer of cement & large gravel, below which is solid clay, at least ten feet deep.  And that clay - it's beautiful.

True did some rock climbing at the Farmer's Market & loves it.  I'm very excited to have a bouldering partner.  I think this is a great sport for his age ~ it's physical & intuitive without a lot of rigid, repetitive movements while still having a clear set of safety guidelines & a definite technique to master & build on.  So it takes a certain level of responsibility.  There's room for style points & it's self-correcting: if you mess up, you fall.  No need for criticism or opinion from mom or anyone else.  

Maybe more importantly, it's totally self-fulfilling, because the higher you go, the more alive & natural & accomplished you feel.  I've always felt that rock climbing is a spiritual exercise.  In any case, there's no need for "good job!"-ing, which can take away from a child's sense of personal accomplishment & put the emphasis on being acknowledged by someone else.  (More on this in Punished By Rewards by Alfie Kohn)

We "Good Job!" all the time, it's a hard habit to break.  I don't think there's anything wrong with it, it feels natural & right to encourage & affirm them, but I do notice it takes them out of the zone a bit.  They seem to react better when we say something like, "You got past that hard spot!" or, "You were under the rock & now you're on top of the rock!"  It makes me think they don't want to be noticed for what they did, they just want me to notice what happened, & to share in their joy.

There's also the built-in incentive of sweet climbing gear.  It's the same for both of us: once we stick with it enough to know we'll stick with it, then it's time for our own climbing shoes.  Once we're belaying, it's time for a harness & - ever popular with boys the world over, carabiners.  I'll be getting us some chalk asap, because I'm dying to sew us little chalk bags.  (The chalk keeps your hands dry so you don't slip)  So he should be feeling pretty legit here, now.

A friend went upstairs with a diaper & came downstairs with 8 pairs of underwear.

Went to a Filipino breakfast place & couldn't get over their tomatoes, so I tried this at home:

Chopped Tomatoes + Medium-Boiled Eggs + Chopped Onion + Lemon Juice.

So Good over fried fish.  I had extra seasoned gluten-free flour that I didn't want to waste, so we sliced some mushrooms & dredged & fried them, too.  They were moist & crunchy with just enough saltiness to make the steamed collard greens sing.

We had to giggle at our 1 year-old, coming out of the house, stepping off the deck, down the path, down the steps, around this compost pile & a half-block down with a helmet over his face.  He couldn't see a thing.  No idea where he's going, just going.

Free, age 3, & always the lover of photography, took this very intentional shot of my clothes + moving hand.  I hadn't realized all the detail before. 

Color.  Babies.  Food.  Learning.  Art.  

Apparently my life is a prayer.

letting them work it out

Putting a tent on top of the poles, instead of slipping the poles into their sleeves.

Does the scientific method really need to be taught?  Do we really need to tell children the outcome of everything they want to do before they do it?  IS that to protect them from failure?  I think they're okay with failure, actually.  Until we interfere & suggest they shouldn't be.  They just keep at it until they have a result.  No, not the result they want.  A result that's interesting.  And then?  They keep at it some more, until they've used up the learning opportunity.

I have to create a new category here, "natural vs. normal."  Certainly I don't know what's really natural & what's really normal, but I'm just going to assert a few things anyways, & probably I'm going to shift as I go along.

I don't think it's natural to take over children's learning. Or to control it.  But it's normal.  It's easy.  There's so much agreement for it.  I'm not saying that they don't need teachers, or guides, or mentors.  They do, need great ones.  I also think it's great to give very specific instructions some times, & to invest in nice materials sometimes, & to let them create a finished piece that they can feel really good about.  

But those projects don't usually have as much real learning, real accomplishment & real character-building autonomy packed in.  They just don't.  Sometimes a child will be guided in a certain direction, say, a tent is placed out while someone's cleaning the garage.  And it turns out they enjoy tent making.  Then they will push it along & find they enjoy camping & will find a naturalist program with an inspired teacher & go full out under that individual's wing.  I consider that natural.  Same goes for real, true community elders passing on a life's worth of intangibles.  Natural.

I consider it normal to mold ourselves around our children's needs & then to control the outcome of everything they start.  I consider it normal to over-discipline & to warn children about how things will turn out.  I consider it normal to keep kids away from the real tools & the real outside dirt & cold & animals, while keeping them inside, giving them toys versions of tools, supplies & animals, with grown-up designed exercises.  I consider it normal to stress ourselves out & put our own hobbies, dreams & well-being on hold for the kids.  But I think this is a recent phenomena.  Part of me knows that I shouldn't be telling them the consequences of every experiment.  I should be washing the dishes, doing the laundry, caring for the community in the way that feels healthy & right for me & engaging on my own work.  Isn't this how it's been since the beginning of time, & still in many sustainable cultures?  

It seems to me that the great teachers, the ones everyone agrees are great, like John Taylor Gatto, are the ones who are passionately doing their own work, discovering things they already know again & again, as if for the first time.  They are modeling learning, right vocation & discovery for the children, while intently holding that same possibility for the children.  (Please don't misunderstand me, here.  I don't consider myself their teacher.  I consider myself their mother, learning alongside them.  I too yearn for great teachers.)

I think they would agree that here again, the children are learning on their own, making their own conclusions & lighting their own bulbs.  A world where everyone else's bulbs are going off would be a little duller than one where I had my own light bulb, above my own head, going off every time I noticed something.  

But it's so natural for them to set off their own light bulbs.  They do it all the time, they push & push until they are outside.  Until they are using real tools & they are making real efforts that create real results that they're real proud of.

This is a great example.  And, for the record, I personally take over & control their initiatives a little bit everyday.  Like I said, that's normal.  So I'm presenting an extraordinary example here, packed with learning, one that I'd like to take credit for.  But the reality is, They were making me laugh & I was too busy taking pictures to interfere.  

As a result, I feel accomplished, too!  These are not homeschooler girls, either.  They are neighborhood girls in the local public school.  This stuff applies to all kids.

pushing the poles into the ground - working together

asserting leadership & trying out each other's ideas

working together to do things that take a community

including all ages at their level

"aye! why is it leaning over like that?"  free: "oh, thank you guys for making a tunnel just my size!"

start over.  what do we do with these poles?