Mother's Day, cont.

My Mother's Day gift from Jordan was well worth the wait. He made me a book. As always, you can click on images to make them bigger.

My mom

My mom has brown eyes. She likes to red books and cook.

(That is a picture of me in my favorite chair.)

My mom helps me do my homework. My mom works as a physisitst.

(On the left, that's us at the dining room table. On the right, I'm giving a talk! See how I have a projector and a screen that hangs from the ceiling, and my arm is sweeping toward the screen, and there is a big audience? This knocks me out! How does he know all that?)

My mom is speshel because she loves me. My mom makes lasagna. 

(Actually, I rarely make lasagna because the children are not fans. But I do often make pizza, and it seems to me that the mom in the picture might be holding a pizza cutter.)

My mom is smart. She knows about every food. My mom is wondeful, smart, and talented.

(I asked Jordan what I am doing in the picture on the right, and he said, "Working on a paper." Far out.)

Your son, Jordan. Age 7.

(He is into drawing apple-picking scenes lately. I love the basketball hoop on the right.)

This is so precious! I especially love how much of it is specific to me, not just general nice things. I am fascinated and moved to learn how he perceives me. Reader, cook, speaker, writer, physisitst. I feel both seen and loved.

Mother's Day

I won't pretend that Mother's Day is one of my better holidays. When your own mom died before your kids were born, it's always going to be a day that hurts. But as the years go on I do find that more and more, I think of myself more as the mother. And my family is pretty terrific. And they love me, so I would like to let them show their appreciation.

The weather this weekend has been pretty inspiring -- some of the first really deliciously warm days we have had this spring. On Saturday we went to Golden Gardens (with what seemed like half the rest of Seattle, including a number of people we know) and had a picnic dinner. The boys are crazy about sand and had a great time burying each other.

Then they dug a big hole and buried Jordan vertically knee-deep, so that he was the same height as Aaron. Pretty funny.

Even funnier when it was Aaron's turn in the hole.

On Sunday, we had a luxurious breakfast and Aaron presented me with Mother's Day gifts he had made at school: a beautiful card with a picture of me, and a decoupaged vase.

I think I look a little worried, and I'm amused that he thinks of my hair as being that long; but I love the picture. The card says, "I like the yummy pizza that mommy makes. Aaron." (For Jordan, we will extend Mother's Day to tomorrow afternoon, so that he can give me what he made at school and left in his locker.)

In the afternoon, Dale led the boys in an extraordinary activity, which was to thoroughly clean both cars. Here they are digging out lord knows what from under the seats. 

And here is Aaron playing fireman to help wash the outside.

Okay, Dale did most of the work, but he gave the boys the pleasure of contributing. And wow, what a great gift! They were pulling stuff out of there that has been there for years. Like Cheerios. We're in a whole different phase of life now, one that does not involve Cheerios in the back seat. I am not entirely thrilled about how old I seem to be lately, but I do welcome the end of the Age of Cheerios. There is more opportunity for self-respect when your youngest is almost five.

Before heading over to Sue's for a family dinner, the boys made cards for other mothers. Aaron made this for Grandma: 

And Jordan constructed this creative masterpiece for Aunt Kari, whose birthday was a few days ago. 

The rock-and-roll Jordan and Kari characters are pretty excellent, but my favorite is the picture of Aunt Kari holding hands with a piece of candy. Kari was charmed too. 

Thanks to my family for making it a day with more love than anything else. And the sunshine was terrific.

Eat What's Here Month

When we decided to move from Maryland to Seattle, I was so eager, I started packing a year in advance. One of the things I decided early on was that I was not going to ship food across the country. Why move it when we could eat it? And what's it there for, if not to be eaten? For several weeks, I planned our weekly menus around what was already in the house, with an eye to actually consuming all of it. We did pretty well. And I liked doing it: It was frugal, it honored the food, and it was an interesting challenge.

So even though now we live in the perfect place and never want to move again, I have established April as Eat What's Here month. The goal is to clean out the pantry and freezer of all those things that have been there for who knows how long. Okay, yes, things like dry beans last forever, but not forever. And what about all that other stuff? This year a bunch of stale bread ends from the freezer became bread pudding, made with rice milk from a forgotten carton and the tail end of some milk powder I found in the bottom of a drawer. A half gallon bag of sliced farmer's market peaches, languishing in the back of the freezer with a smaller quantity of half-dehydrated tart pluots, became the filling for these granola-fruit sandwich bars. I even worked some random smokehouse almonds into the crust. Past successes have included tomato soup with dumplings made from leftover matzo ball soup mix; canned chili with cornbread, using up the last bit of cornmeal in the freezer; frozen chicken shiu mai, with veggies, served over sticky rice with bottled teriyaki sauce; canned soups with baked potatoes; canned baked beans with croquettes made from grits; and lentils and rice with caramelized onions (which is much more flavorful than it sounds).

This year I rose to a new level of challenge in that I not only had accumulated the usual whatever of my own, but had also inherited the contents of someone else's pantry. (Guess what? They moved to Texas, and didn't want to take the food with them.) I did not know what to do with these unidentified dried peppers. I tasted one and it was pretty sweet.

Facebook to the rescue! My now-Texan friend said: "Ancho peppers. Toast, seed, hydrate, then blend into a paste with spices, garlic and broth. Then you'll know what to do." I realized that I was about to make my own mole. That deep, pungent, sweet, smoky sauce was soon to be mine. And I became very excited. Because one of my passions, one of my things, is to make things from scratch that we normally think of as prepared foods. (Sometime I hope to tell you about the Marshmallow Madness.) Soon I was toasting the peppers, and my house smelled amazing.

The mole is extraordinary. And I have a lot. Would anyone like some? Because now I have something new in my freezer, and it won't last forever.

Ancho Chile Sauce
adapted from The Splendid Table

6 dried ancho chiles
5 garlic cloves, peels on
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon dried basil
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons vegetable oil or rendered bacon fat
2 medium onions, chopped medium fine
One 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes or pureed plum tomatoes
One 1-ounce chunk smoked ham, cut into pieces
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1 to 2 teaspoons sugar
Kosher salt

Toast the whole dried chiles in the oven for a few minutes. Stay nearby so that you can snatch them out of the oven as their smell becomes intoxicating. They will be all puffed up! Wow! Cool them, open them up, and discard the stems and seeds. Cover the pieces with boiling water and let soak for 20 minutes, or until softened.

Meanwhile, put the garlic cloves in a small heavy pan and toast for about 15 minutes. Shake occasionally. They are ready when the skins have blackened in spots and the garlic has softened. Peel the cloves and combine in a blender with the cinnamon, basil, oregano, cumin seeds, broth, and vinegar. Drain the ancho chiles and add to the blender. Blend at high speed until smooth.

Saute the onions until golden brown. Add the ancho chile mixture and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes and ham, partially cover, and simmer until the sauce is very thick, about 25 minutes. Add the chocolate and simmer until the sauce is even thicker and has reduced to about 4 cups. Discard the ham (or not) and add the sugar and salt to taste. I'll say it again: Wow.

Learning writing

We got a letter home from Jordan's teacher on the Friday before spring break, explaining that Jordan had not completed a sufficient quantity of writing in class, and would have to do some as homework over break. Apparently he had three weeks of writing time in class during which he produced almost nothing, so that now, she did not have enough work to be able to evaluate his progress. She sounded frustrated. While we wanted to sympathize, we also were a little put out. After all, this was the first we had heard of it; what were we supposed to have been doing? And we were fairly annoyed at having to do homework over break... we had all been looking forward to a reprieve. 

Grudgingly, we did make time for it, and in the process of working with Jordan my sympathy for the teacher increased. It was a pain in the neck. Jordan has a quality about him that often, when there is something he doesn't want to do, he doesn't make a big fuss: he just doesn't do it. This can be a great way to go: for example, if he is served food he doesn't like, he does not declare it disgusting; he just quietly doesn't eat it. That's good manners. But if you are in public school, and you are not succeeding in doing a task, and you just quietly don't do it, weeks can go by without anyone recognizing what's going on. So I got a sense of how this non-work could have happened. 

The hardest part for Jordan seems to be coming up with what to write in the first place. Revising is much easier. When I realized that, I thought... ain't that the truth, honey. I have gotten to be a pretty productive writer over the years, but we all are faced with that blank page at some point. I have worked with a number of beginning professional writers (mostly graduate students) who, like Jordan, are seriously daunted by a first draft, sometimes to the point of just putting it off and putting it off until weeks have gone by and no one realized you weren't doing anything, just like in Jordan's case. I admit, it is maddening! Here I am trying very hard to be positive and encouraging and supportive and helpful; why isn't he responding?? But the fact is that I am not in possession of a magic writer's-block elixir. And of course if I get frustrated and pushy, all the pent-up stress I think he has been repressing comes crashing out and he bursts into tears, at which point he can't work at all, because he's flooded, and he doesn't want my help, because I'm the enemy who is shoving this down his throat. All around, it's very difficult to help him be productive. And none of this is unique to seven-year-olds.

All that said, we got a certain amount done, and I wrote his teacher a letter describing the experience.

Dear Heather, 

Thanks for the heads up about Jordan's writing. This was the first we heard of his not completing his in-class assignments. Over break we worked with him to make a publishable version of the soccer piece, for which there was a draft in the folder, and to write three drafts of a new piece about his swim teacher (first getting ideas out, then correcting all the mistakes, and then finally writing a version with no mistakes).  

Getting him to do this work required intensive effort on everyone's part. Creating a new piece from scratch was the hardest. Jordan would just sit there in front of the paper, not doing anything, even with a parent sitting right next to him giving him constant support and encouragement. It drove us all crazy! I don't know what the issue is with his writing production. He says he can't think of what to say. I'm sure this is common. But it was certainly very frustrating for everyone. In spite of our efforts to be patient and positive, there were a lot of tears and rejecting the task and just unproductive time. Producing these two pieces took multiple hour-long sessions on multiple days. 

The good news is that with constant one-on-one support and a rough draft to work from, Jordan does warm to the task eventually. Once he gets rolling, he is much more attentive and hardworking, and his creativity kicks in so that he can improve and add to his sentences as well as his correcting his writing errors.  

I notice that he often writes letters  like m, n,  and r starting at the bottom instead of the top, which impacts his writing clarity. He writes other letters in unorthodox ways also. I worked with him to correct his m, n, and r (made him practice them many many times starting at the top) and he was responsive. I think he'll need more of this to improve his handwriting. He also has a fist grip with his pencil that we are trying to help him correct. 

In general it's an effort for us to try to be firm enough that he completes his assignments without inciting rebellion. We want to work with you to help him improve his writing, but the thought of more homework is pretty daunting for our family. If you have any suggestions, we'd be glad to talk to you more about it. 

Thanks again for keeping us in the loop,
Rachel and Dale

She wrote back the next day:

Hi, 

I grabbed Jordan and his work this morning and gave him much praise!  He was very excited to share them.  We talked about why this happened and the cumulative effect of not writing in class for 20-25 minutes a day, 4 times a week.  We also talked about how that in this unit, when I would come by to confer, he would be writing a sentence or two, but never completing a piece.  We also talked about asking for help and letting me know when he is struggling with a topic.  

We are on to poetry and Jordan informed me he has like 46 topics ready to go!  He said he does not want writing to have to come home again.  Thanks for your support at home!

I think this is a success! We all understand Jordan's situation a little better, including Jordan, and can work together better to make it all happen. We have improved communication with his teacher and are feeling like we're all on the same team. This is hugely helpful for me.

In the end he can produce a pretty entertaining piece. Here is his review of the Sand Point Grill, which was part of the unit they just completed on persuasive writing.

Tulips

We went to the Tulip Festival in Skagit Valley on Saturday with our friends the Graybills. Dale and Jules were in 60-mile bike ride called the Tulip Pedal (Dale's first event!), and Jessica and I decided to take the kids up to the same zone. I've never been. The weather was incredible, sun like we haven't felt in many months, and being surrounded by giant blasts of color is pretty awesome.

Jordan was interested to observe the inside parts of the flower (the closeup photo is his). He recently had a field trip to a research greenhouse where the kids assisted with pollination; he taught his techniques to the others.

We entertained ourselves looking for the occasional red tulip in a sea of yellow, or sometimes just a single petal of a different color. Do these not seem like brave individualists? Probably an American sensibility.

One of the (many) really enjoyable parts of the day was watching Jordan and Ian together. They have always hit it off - Ian was the one last summer about whom Jordan said, at camp, "He's my Pokemon buddy, my bus buddy, and my chicken-dance buddy." They were tight all day.

Actually we all got along famously. 

Here are the bikers, who I hear got along well too and are looking forward to future events.

After enjoying the tulips, we took ourselves over to Padilla Bay, a state park just up the road from the tulip zone. We discovered an astonishingly well-appointed interpretive center and went on a pleasant hike along the shore.  

Ian and Jordan had their own thing going.

The bikers were nearby... they got to the interpretive center shortly after we left, and then their route turned away from the shoreline trail, but we hooted at them on the highway.

The trip ended as it should, with ice cream, followed by naps in the back. Awesome day everyone! Thanks!

Ash land

Dad was saying goodbye to Jordan today and talking about the next time we will see each other, which will be a family vacation in July. "We'll meet in Oregon," Dad said. "We're going to Ashland." Jordan looked at him a little funny and said "I'd rather go to Legoland. At Legoland everything is made of legos." Eventually we realized that perhaps he was thinking of ...

Oh my goodness. I'd better show him some pictures of the real Ashland, quick. (The grownups are going for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the kids will enjoy the parks during the day.)

Lettuce my people go

We're having a great Passover. We have spent two nights out at other friends' houses; I failed to take any pictures at either of these, but if they send me some I'll update this post with evidence of how much fun we had. The other two nights so far have been home. We are keeping up our unique family tradition of doing just a little bit of the seder each night. This way things are less hectic and nobody's patience runs out. For example, Saturday night we did just the candles, wine, karpas, and matzah/maror/charoset. Ten minutes! We conducted the ceremonies in the tent, like last year, but this year the weather has been glorious so we put the tent outside.

As you can see, Dad is here visiting, which is great. Our holiday is a an entertaining change of pace for him. He's been attending the same seder for forty years, and while that seder is a treasured tradition, ours has the advantage of featuring multiple grandchildren as central participants. It makes for quite a different scene than the mostly adult seder back in San Francisco. For example, Baby Moses Salad was such a hit last year that we reprised it for 2012 and I have to say the creations are equally inspired. The lettuce leaf is the basket of reeds.

Jordan: 

Dad:

 

Dale:

 

Rachel (with artichoke blanket):

Aaron (sort of a Baby Centipede Moses):

As we rolled up our lettuce leaves and crunched away on our respective Baby Moseses, we talked about Moses. We remembered the details of his story: What does the name Moses mean? Who named him that? Did he have siblings? We discussed things we admired about Moses, and recalled some big mistakes he made. We mused on details: Did Moses have another name before he was called Moses? Why wasn't Moses's older brother put in a basket too? How old did he live to be? And what was so bad about the rock-striking incident?