Growth spurt

A few weeks ago C and I were sprawled out in front of her bookcase, reading through all her books with a good story line (or a catchy rhyme) before the babysitter arrived. The doorbell rang and C stood up quickly - too fast for me to catch her. Her head hit hard on the ledge of her changing table and she cried over the bump, over the doorbell and over the surprise of outgrowing an under-furniture haunt.

Today though, when the doorbell rang and she jumped up from our books, C didn’t bang her head, but gently bumped it, like a dolphin bumping a boat. Then she walked under the ledge its full length, test bumping with every step. Perhaps she just wanted to check the limits of her space, or maybe she liked being in control - able to meet something that had surprised her in the past and say, hey here I am, Caroline, 93 centimeters tall and growing, you won't catch me this time!

A mouse is in the house

It took me three weeks to track down all the words to this little rhyme. Caroline has been walking around the house whispering the words, then belting them out to various tunes, but the only phrase I could partially understand was "Mamo, Tato la la la la nic!" Our babysitter Marie gave me a few more words and Google obliged with the rest.

Mámo, táto, v komoře je myš
Pustíme tam kocoura, ten tu myšku vyšťourá
Mámo, táto, už tam neni nic.

I've filed it away under Básničky (Czech nursery rhymes), and now C and I stomp around chant-singing it together. The rough translation is something like this:

Mommie, daddy, a mouse is in the pantry
Send in the tom cat and the mouse will get clawed out
Mommie, daddy, it's already gone.

Hmm...sounds better in Czech don't you think?

Playground sociology

Many worlds exist here, in Prague. It is easy to forget and become accustomed to noticing only your own small space, but then there are places where those worlds meet: the grocery store, the post office, the playground on a Saturday.

Last weekend we took Caroline over to our favorite playground, the one with the EU approved slides and swings, where the sand is reserved for children, no dogs allowed. With an excited “Hopi, hopi!” (Swing swing!) Caroline headed over to the toddler swings, herding Will with her, leaving me free to soak up the sun and people watch.

Over on the merry-go-round, three 15 year old boys raced each other round after round, until they had to stop, one pretending to shake out sand from his shoes, another with no excuses, just bent double over his knees until he could stagger to a bench. They wore clothes almost hip enough to appear in a U.S. middle school, and though their shoes looked grocery store bought and unbranded, they’d got the short sleeve skater tee over long sleeve knit look down, and their baseball caps had that carefully molded curve only dedication to the art of hat shaping (and several boring math classes) could have achieved.

Two Romany kids marched in to the playground. Both were skinny and in clothes the cool fifteen year olds would never have touched. The smaller had a bruised face, the older watched over him like the kindest of big brothers, letting him choose what to play on, helping him onto the rocking horse when he was too short to reach it. I followed their defiant progress across the yard, watching to see how they’d be received by the other kids. They settled on the slide combo fireman’s pole fort – the new toy on the play ground and the most popular. Immediately though, all the other kids cleared off. Only one child stayed behind, an eighteen month old twirling round and round the fireman’s pole, oblivious to ostracism and to the older boy above, tapping his foot, impatient to claim the pole and its domain for his family. Dizzy, the baby finally let go to stagger face first into the side of the slide. His mother came then, to pick him up and comfort his cries and the Romany boy told her the baby had hit his nose and how. Somehow, this contact broke the ice, and the mother stayed and chatted with the boy until he walked over to the sand box and began to play with his younger brother again, pouring sand from bucket to bucket with the left behind plastic toys scattered across the yard.

Later, more expat families arrived, just as the prudent and early rising Czechs started packing up to go home for lunch. We waited a while longer, until the last bell for noon had rung, then talked a reluctant C into leaving as well and headed back home for our own Saturday lunch.

Cookies are cool

Caroline and I had our first hanging out together, mother and daughter chilling and contemplating the ceiling, late evening chat last night. We’d spent the last three hours together, C keeping me company in the kitchen while I cooked, then gobbling up the chicken I accidentally caramelized in apple juice and sunflower oil (a happy accident), I keeping her from drowning in the bathtub and pouring out all of Will’s shampoo, entertaining her through toothbrushing & flossing, pajama assembling and milk pouring. Then we read, about fifteen books but especially her current favorite Mem Fox book, Sleepy Bears. That we read twice, singing along to the rhymes.

After that we sang some more, “Jingle Bells,“ “Sleep sleep“ and “Little Birdies“, Caroline drank her milk and then I was going to leave until she said, „Lie this, Mommie, lie this.“ (this = there). So I did, just for a bit, and since Will wasn’t home yet. And we looked up at the ceiling and I hummed a little more and then Caroline raised herself up, hand underneath chin, looked at me seriously and said, „Mommie, cookies are cool.“

I didn’t understand at first what she meant, but she said it several times, and when I understood, I had to agree. Then I gave her an imaginary cookie, took one myself and we lay back and crunched for awhile, until she gave me an apple (apfel she said) and we ate that too and then I gave her a kiss, said night night and left her to sleep.

0100 1000 0100 1001 World

“Computers,“ my grandfather, Jim Jim, said. “The future is computers.“

We were 11 at the time, in fifth grade, and we didn’t know much about computers, but we knew, if Jim Jim said something, it was probably true. He didn’t make pronouncements often, and though he kept a stern eye on us at each meal to make sure we practiced best table manners, after dinner we were more likely to be found leaning against his knees while he read the economic news and we read back issues of Washington Post cartoons, than listening to any lectures.

But Jim Jim was an oracle for us, nonetheless. He was the only non-Southerner in our entire extended family, and though he’d moved from California nearly fifty years before, he still had a quickness and business sense about him which seemed to us to hearken from the cool, rational, North.

So we took this advice to heart, my sister and me. We volunteered to work on a computer badge for our Girl Scout troop, memorizing the binary code for the alphabet and visiting a nearby university to watch a super computer at work. To encourage us, Jim Jim bought us our first computer, a Commodore 64, and night after night Ellen and I would take turns typing in pages of code that the computer magazine promised would turn into a game or music program. At camp while other kids were canoeing and horse back riding, we studied BASIC, and in middle school I became the system administrator, of sorts, for our school’s computer room (whenever something didn’t work I’d turn off the computer and hard reboot, it almost always worked and I never could figure out why the teachers couldn’t remember this simple trick. But they didn’t, so my status as guru for nothing was early on established).

Then I picked up the violin and discovered chamber music and orchestras, and for years I didn’t think of a computer as anything more than a word processor, number cruncher, paper printer and game console. It wasn’t until 1994, in graduate school, when I had the chance to start building websites for the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, that I caught the bug again. But that's another story.

Filed under: geeky family UNC-CH

Ball in the hall

“No hopping on Mommie’s head!” I said. Caroline obediently moved to my ribs and started jumping again, “Wake up, wake up!”

So much for nap time, my try to lull C into sleep with contagious snores clearly wouldn’t work that day, so I sat up. I went the lazy way first – “Go get a book, and let’s read.” But: “No book no book!”
Drawing? No.
Ball in the hall? No.

“Are you sure? Ball in the hall C, with buckets.”
      “Oh-kay,” she cracked in her teenage toddler voice.

Caroline set up the buckets herself, two small pails that travel with her every day to the playground to help out on sand pit excavations. I grabbed three balls and we lined ourselves up in the kitchen hallway. If a ball even hit a bucket, it was a score; a ball bouncing into a bucket, cause for a Caroline toss to the ceiling celebration.

By the time the game petered out, I’d taught her to roll the ball rather than throw it and she’d hit the buckets twice to much excitement. She loved running down the hall to fetch the balls and then running back to try again, running with her baby legs kicking out in front and sideways as she went. My kick came from watching C begin to understand that we could use the rules of the game to make playing a challenge, and fun too. For once she took turns and shared out the balls. And she knew to step away from the buckets, far enough away that she just might miss, and it didn't bother her to roll once and again and then run to pick everything up and try once more, because in the end it was about the doing it and not the winning that we liked, when we played ball in the hall.

Filed under: toddler_tales games

Pronunciation – Help!

I just installed Lingea Lexicon on my new computer. It’s an excellent Czech English dictionary that I’ve used for several years as it is fast and includes what I imagine to be useful examples. For instance, thanks to Lingea I know the correct preposition to use - "o", should I need to ask someone to shout for help. “Křik pro pomoc”, the literal translation, probably wouldn’t get me as far.

Of course, even knowing that I should use “o” and “pomoc” together is no guarantee that anyone would understand me if I yelled “křik”. It has the ř in it, that devilish letter that twists my tongue about and renders my speech unrecognizable unless I’ve had lots of practice on a word, or simply learned the way that Czech lispers get around it. So when I saw in the Lingea installation package that I could add a pronunciation option using only 6 more MB of hard drive space, I said “báječný nápad!” - “super idea!”, and hit go.

Five minutes later and installation complete, I typed in “křik” and looked for the pronunciation button. No sign of it, so I clicked over to the English translation, found the button and confirmed that “shout” spoken by a British man can sound very dull indeed. English to český, Czech to anglický, after a few more dictionary flip floppings I had to conclude that yes, there was pronunciation for all English words, but no, there wasn’t any for Czech. It is, after all, a phonetic language. And if just anyone learned how to say “křik,“ how would one know the Czechs from the foreigners (or lispers) among us.

Rybanaruby introduces the hep cats of Manesova

“It’s the fifties, in four color,” I thought when we walked into the bar last night. Most of the audience was dressed in black, men in turtlenecks and cords, the girls in leotards and short skirts, everyone wearing a serious face. The audience beat along on African drums, listening to a band with a bushy faced guitarist and a white bereted drummer who rattled and glocked his way through songs like a kid discovering the drum settings on a synthesizer and used mini-chimes to skin crawling effect. It could have been a video documentary of a jazz happening, somewhere in the U.S. in 1952, except for the colors - red yellow and orange from the scarves the girls wore casually draped, and from the ethno print cloth softening the bricks behind the stage. We were just for a moment trying out something that maybe hadn’t had a chance to happen here, years back under communism, so why not now.

Not unusual, that feeling I get sometimes, meeting up with an experience that would feel, today, so contrived in the U.S., but seems so normal here in Prague. Maybe it is just me, rebelling against my built-in irony filter, fine tuned to cringe at my own and others naïveté, but I find it endearing and liberating even that people can still go to jams and listen to hep cats play the night away, banging with their own hands too to help along the music.

The bar: Rybanaruby, Manesova 87, Prague 2.

Filed under: Prague music jazz 1950s

Czech mushroom sauce

I’m waiting for a very slow email to come in, so thought I’d pop by and say hi. It’s another wonderfully sunny day in Prague and I can hear the kids from the high school across the way, on the sidewalk and street, catching up with each other during break. If I looked out the window I’d see them from the top down - heads hoodies and baggie jeans accented with cigarette, headphones, or both. Inside, Caroline has set up her plastic stove right in the middle of the kitchen and she and Marie are cooking up a storm. Marie brought in a big basket of mushrooms today, fresh from the countryside south of Prague: Penny Buns, Orange Birch Boletes, Brown Birch Scaber Stalks, maybe even a Slippery Jack. Already, cut into pieces, they are on their way towards the collective hegemony that is mushroom sauce, ready to serve over steamed dumplings for lunch. It smells delicious, but I’m glad I snapped a shot of the mushrooms in their basket, so many shades of brown, and beautiful. Outside, the bell rings. The kids make one last crackle of noise, like birds rising from trees, then flick their cigarettes away and head back in to class.

Filed under: Prague mushrooms cooking

Football fan in Prague

I don’t know what it is, the weather – cool, sunny, with wind carrying the hint of a bonfire. Or maybe the light – that sideways glance you get of the sun that brings out the color in Prague for one last time before it retires with November and everything goes grey til spring. But most likely it’s because my university’s football team, the Vanderbilt Dores, a quite remarkably bad team for years on end, has won 4 out of 5 of our last games.

But here’s the thing. For one season at least, I am following football. Every Sunday morning I jump to the New York Times to click open "Saturday College Football". I read the entire listing, and call up my football fan friends in Prague (all southerners or southern alums) to chat over the litany of team wins that we have, for the moment, learned by heart. When my dad calls, I ask him for his predictions, and that night I listen to my brother’s college radio show and pick the analysis out of the fun. And it all seems somehow exotic, but nostalgic too, in a land where football means soccer and tailgate parties and college sport leagues don’t exist.

Bang Head on Floor Dumb – adventures in iPod formatting

Will’s back! The celebration just keeps on happening, and between sipping Starbucks, reading new books to Caroline, and listening to Will play his steel guitar, (all items freshly lugged over the seas) I’ve been getting to know the iPod I sent Will for his birthday.

Working your way around an iPod takes about 30 seconds. It should be Edward Tufte’s next case study in design usability. Blinded by its hockey stick learning curve, I thought I’d just go ahead and hook it up to our computer, download some more music and be ready to roll the next day with a pod full of tunes.

Will was a little wary about this. “Maybe wait until tomorrow” he said. Blithe me replied “Baby this is just a computer, if there’s anything I know, it’s computers!” and disappeared into the dark cave of our study. Dark because it backs Caroline’s room, and her sole window shines into it. Dark because a little light while C is falling asleep and you have a baby on the edge. It was 8:30 and I’d just finished the routine of songs and stories, wuv yous and night nights. I was ready for some music and solitude.

I popped the port connection into the computer and started up the installation process. Very very shortly afterwards the ominous words “Formatting iPod” appeared on my screen and I watched as the little blue thermometer crept towards done.

Within seconds, Will’s first collection of 136 tunes (downloaded from a Mac) had disappeared. Stone cold with dread, I flipped on the light then, to get a better view of the wreckage, and saw the cd slip case for the first time. “Install software before connecting iPod.” Crimey-ola!

I’m still not sure what would have happened, had I remembered the cardinal rule for installing drivers (1st install the driver THEN plug in the device). I know the Pod needed to change its format from Mac to PC somehow, but perhaps we could have saved those songs. It’s not in the documentation. But here and now I do declare that I will at least try to read and follow the instructions, next time. Cross my heart.

Filed under: geeky music

My third car is a Prius

...environmentalists need to be less preachy. Mark Katz, a humorist and former speech writer for President Bill Clinton, said Americans might be more willing to take up conservation if they could first laugh at their own consumption. His suggestion is a bumper sticker for S.U.V.'s that reads, "My third car is a Prius," a reference to Toyota's popular electric hybrid vehicle.

Following Katz's advice in the New York Times's "It's Not Sexy Being Green (Yet)" I put together this bumper sticker and briefly uploaded the full version to CafePress. But good sense (and copyright laws) prevailed. Still, if anyone wants the full version for your own car I'll send the png to you for free, and add TM to the Prius too!

Educational Activities for a Rainy Day

This weekend was a long one for C and me. Will is in the U.S. visiting with his family following his granddaddy’s funeral on Thursday. He’s back tomorrow morning and we’re going to mob him at the door.

Will’s trip coincided with (or perhaps prompted?) Caroline’s crib boycott. She can fall asleep on the bed at night, but she just can’t fall asleep for a nap and so she’s sleep deprived and grumpy and so am I. All was not a loss today, though, and here's the list to prove it. Please refer to today's title, before we begin.

1. Actively listen to children's TV show with child: translated every time Barney said Eins Zwie Drei!
2. Get kids involved in cleaning up and simple cooking activies: cooked eggs for lunch while Caroline perched on counter to help. Bonus, showed off best clean up practices for smashed egg on floor, courtesy of helper.
3. Work on expanding your child's food palette: experimented with sardines for lunch. Reverted to Bird’s Eye Custard for dessert to take fish taste away (“phoey”, only comment from C). Supplied piskoty (Vanilla Wafers) for dipping and extra space filling.
4. Encourage child to learn how to count everyday items: C counted sippy cups accumulated during nap. I applauded her ability to say “one orange sippy cup, 2 orange sippy cup, 3 orange…”
5. Demonstrate how to do something by practicing it yourself: showed off my own best napping practices until C tired of demo and wacked me hard on the head. Dizzy, yet awake, illustrated weaving from room around obstacle course of overturned toy chest(s).
6. Help child learn to play on her own: handed out child-safe scissors* and colored paper, drew several flowers to cut out and left C to her own resources (* really wonderful, they truly just cut paper and that only on occasion).
7. If an activity is a success, try expanding its potential: Returned from 9 minute break to find a happy C and frayed paper collection. Attempted to turn paper into attractive fringe hat. Following tears and incriminations turned hat back into many many many armed octopus.
8. Create parallels between child's enthusiasms and everyday activities: discussed swimming during bathtime as C is pro swimming (it involves octopi and making waves). Attempted to persuade that it also involves getting hair wet and may even include soap. Failed in persuasion (this time!).
9. Teach child to use words when frustrated: Worked on encouraging negotiation skills while attaching diaper and pajamas. "In a case like this, saying ‘I’ll trade you moo for the prison garb’ is more effective than kicking, go ahead, you try!"

Filed under: toddler_tales creative lists

Rhymes with, looks like…

Orange! C says, triumphantly pointing out the orange table in Kleine Bär. Broon Bear. Blue boat. Red shoe, purple balloon. Everything this week is color and while she is showing off her yellow jacket to me before we go out on a walk, I am marveling at how she learned colors, in English, despite her lazy parents. I’m guessing the credit lies with one of her babysitters, Lucie, who is part of our family of wonderful sitters and the most creative of them all. Sometimes I take notes on the songs and games that she teaches Caroline, so that we have something to do on rainy Saturdays when C gets tired of my favorite rainy day past time - creating personalized coloring books (it doesn’t require any talent I don’t normally possess except complete self mortification – usefully stocked up so that I don’t care when my carefully rendered drawing of Christopher Robin gets annulled by magic marker for the third time in five minutes).

Our relationship with books has changed generally, because Caroline likes to help out now, listening carefully until it’s her turn and then jumping in with the rhyme or the key word on a page. Dr. Seuss is great for this, and I’ve become a fan of his nearly indestructible board books. Mr Brown Likes to Moo, The Foot Book and There’s a Wocket in My Pocket all have Caroline rhyming or even singing along (Try Mr Brown set to "Turkey in the Straw"). Sometimes she guesses the rhyme when we’re reading a new book and it is always fun to hear her guesses. There’s a Nink in the... "Pink! "

Filed under: toddler_tales words Seuss creative