Stepping into History

How often do you get to wander back into history, nibble on historic recipes and holiday treats, and meet local authors and artists? Well, if you live in Monterey: at least once a year at the State Parks' Christmas in the Adobes event! Last year was the first time we attended and the boys wanted to go again. What a fantastic opportunity for enrichment and family fun.

We saw Riley's classmate Lina perform "chinches" (spelling?), a dance inspired by the squishing and sliding through bed bug juice at the Custom House...

 We ran into Linda Yamane, the Ohlone master basket weaver we met last year, at the Pacific House and she let Dylan try on her goose feather headress...

We ate Scottish oatcakes at California's First Theatre and snagged the recipe...we drank horchata at Casa Serrano...

We met Randall Reinstedt, local historian and prolific author, and the boys picked up two of his books that we didn't already own; Robert McNamara, Riley's mandolin teacher, was performing at the Larkin House; the boys made button yo-yos and devoured gingerbread at the Cooper-Molera Adobe; and we ended the adventure by eating clam chowder overlooking the harbor. 

Amazing evening...but I have to say that my favorite part of the evening was when we were walking back to the car, Dylan asked me, "Mom, what did you learn tonight?" That's how we always end all of our adventures - reflecting on something that was new to us - but it was first time that he initiated the conversation.

I learned that the First Theatre was originally a boarding house. The docent there explained to us how hinged clapboards swung down from the ceiling to create individual rooms and the poorer guests climbed the ladder-stairs to the top floor where they could stay (and eat in the morning) for twenty-five cents. The boys are excited to attend a performance there when they reopen in 5 years. Me, too!

THE Talk

**Warning: this post is not for the squeamish, or for the mother who is still in denial that her kids will ever have sex.**

You know the talk to which I'm referring, right? THE talk. My boys are ten-and-a-half and almost nine. So, I have had nearly a decade to mentally prepare myself for this. Looking back on my own adolescence, I wasn’t even interested in boys until at least thirteen and I didn't start my period until I was fifteen. I figured that I still had time. I mean, they both just wrote letters to Santa Claus!

And though their classmates are outpacing them as far as exposure to sex - via movies and television -, I fear that my boys' curiosity will soon surface and I would rather that they get the info from me and my husband. Besides, I've heard buzzings that this is the year - 5th grade - that they get some kind of sex ed in school. And once Riley knows something, Dylan knows it.

We've had cursory discussions about puberty. The boys started doing laundry this year and asked my husband "why does mommy bleed in her panties?" I actually scheduled my kid to go the doctor because he was concerned that one testicle was larger than the other. Turns out we cancelled the appointment, after three pairs of testicles were whipped out of boxer shorts in my living room and the guys to whom they were attached discussed what is normal. I wanted to scream, "Why am I here?Am I really necessary for this conversation?!?"

Not too long ago, Dylan said this and I happily chuckled to myself and sighed with relief: "I already know where babies come from. The daddies give the mommies the parts. And the mommies do all the work of making the baby." Yes! I don't think that my husband was wholly amused, but he seemed relieved, too, that we had staved off another brush with The Talk.

When we had our friends' girls with us for Spring Break, I hastily typed out an email saying that if their kids came home talking about eggs and sperm it was because we were watching a documentary about spawning salmon. Thankfully, none of the kids made the mental leap from salmon eggs and sperm to human eggs and sperm. That would have sent me over the edge that week.

I am not ready for The Talk. I’m just not. I think I'm okay with a discussion of the mechanics - maybe - and the anatomy. I just don't know how to discuss the intentions and the ramifications. I remember my mom saying that sex was something that happens between two married people - in a bed. True. But that seems needlessly old-fashioned and prudish. I mean, let's be honest, Jake and I weren't married when we started having sex and we don't always have sex in a bed.

Right now the boys equate sex with mating. Sex is to make babies. I'm okay with that. The fact that sex is recreational and enjoyable...well, I'm okay with that, too, on a personal level but - as a mother - not so much. I have, so far, cowered away from this topic and would prefer to sequester the boys in a closet somewhere until they graduate from college, but I know this is unrealistic.

One of my best friends' six-year-old asked her about sex last week. She fumbled and ended up asking him, "Have you ever watched the nature channel?" Then she came in to work and asked me if she could borrow  my nature channel documentaries on DVD. And in the face of her horror, we all laughed. All of us. Her husband. My husband. Even me. But I stopped laughing when I recognized that her kid is the little kid in our gang; my boys are older than he is. It might be time.

I am fully cognizant that not talking about it would be worse than talking about it. So, I'll squirm on the couch next to my husband while broaching the subject which is vastly preferable to sitting on the couch next to my husband, learning that one of our boys has an STD or is going to be a father, right?!?

Yes, it is our responsibility, as the parents, to teach them about safe sex. I don’t want them to have sex. I don’t even really want them to even know what sex is. But they will know and they will have sex. Ugh. There, I said it. My boys will have sex...likely within this next decade. I much prefer to have The Talk now when I am not ready, than later when I am still not ready and there are already ramifications.

My hope is that my boys will leave the conversation, set aside their mortification and embarrassment, and take some time to think it through. I also hope that they choose to wait a long, long, long, long time until engaging in sexual activity. But I will sleep better knowing that I have done all I can as a parent and if they do choose not to wait, at least they are educated and will know how to protect themselves.

That aside, maybe it's not too late to embrace my Catholic roots. Then I can morally guilt them into never having sex. Or scare them. Anyone have any horror stories? Or chastity belts?!? 

A Pot of Wishes

Classroom birthday and holiday gifts for teachers are always a dilemma. Are they for you? It requires an idea, some volunteer parents to implement, and - the most challenging - asking and getting parent contributions if the gift requires money. Yes, there are gifts that don't! But for a rock star teacher, book devourer, potter, and avid SCUBA diver who is beloved by both his students and the parents...our solution was this...

They had just finished reading A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park. Set in Korea this Newbery Medal-winning book follows Tree-ear, an orphan, who lives under a bridge in Ch’ulp’o, a potters' village famed for delicate celadon ware.

So I found a celadon pot by Liz at SkyBird Arts Pottery; it was even more beautiful in person than on her online store. And we had the kids each write a wish for their teacher to create a pot of wishes. Riley folded and stuffed to fit them all in there and I wrapped it up with a bow.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend the birthday brunch and gift giving, but I hear it was a hit. Happy birthday, Tod!

Lending a Helping Hand

This morning Riley went with Nonno to help pack bags of food at The Food Bank. Jake and I think that teaching the boys to lend a helping hand to people needier than we are is a very important lesson. But we don't always have time to teach that lesson. Thankfully, we have other adults in our boys' lives who do have time...and energy.

Riley said that they worked in an assembly line. One thing he learned: "when they give you a break, you should take it." Apparently, he was offered a break and he kept working. Then he didn't get another offer and he was tired. Nonno rewarded him a lunch at In'N'Out! Thank, Nonno.

Making Readers...and Writers

How do you grow avid readers and aspiring writers? Take them to really cool events with local authors. Tonight the boys' school hosted an All Star Reading Night where they invited six local authors to come, read from their books, talk about what inspires them, and sign books to newly won fans. We, naturally, walked out with an armload full of new books. Riley was quite taken with Belle Yang and had her sign his copy of Forget Sorrow.



Laura Joy Rennert read from her book "Royal Princess Academy, Dragon Dreams", illustrated by French artist Melanie Florian.







Murlie Hanson is a recognized award-winning author who promotes education and creative thinking. She has lived in Norway, Bolivia, and in both the least and most populated states in America. She has been a Fulbright Scholar, a reporter, a columnist, and wrote a legal rights handbook for the disabled. She practices trust law in California and is writing a legal fiction novel. Winner of the MOM'S CHOICE AWARDS GOLD MEDAL for Excellence in Children's Picture Books.


Anne Ylvisaker is the author of the middle grade novels Button Down, The Luck of the Buttons, Little Klein, and Dear Papa, all from Candlewick Press, as well as an award winning board book, and nineteen nonfiction books for young readers. In 2005 Anne was awarded the McKnight Artist Fellowship/Loft Award in Children’s Literature. She incorporates old family photos into her books. 

And, lastly, Brad Herzog and Luke Herzog read to the group. Dylan waited in line to get a copy of Luke's Dragon Valley.



What an amazing evening!

School Portraits

We are not a family who sits for portraits. Ask any of our relatives who came to our wedding; we didn't even pose for family wedding photos. I may regret that down the line, but it's not the look I like. And I was a stubborn 20something at the time. Now I'm a stubborn 30something...almost 40. I still prefer candid shots or, if they are posed, they better be fun! Like this class photo from Dylan's class...

But there's something about school photos. That shocking growth from year to year. So, happily, I pay for the school portraits. Besides the photographers are good friends of ours and I try to support any of our friends who own their own businesses.

Here are my [huge] 3rd and 5th graders. How did this happen so fast?!?

Ocean Frontiers Premiere

One of the best things about living here: the ocean. And it's absolutely our responsibility to do what we can to preserve it for generations to come. So, whenever we have a chance to bring the boys to an event that teaches about ocean conservation, we take it!

We crowded into the historic Golden State Theatre for the Monterey premiere of the film Ocean Frontiers, watched the movie, then listened to the panel discussion - with Karen Anspacher-Meyer, the filmmaker; Greg Young, local fisherman and coordinator for Local Catch Monterey, a community supported fishery; Jeanine Chicourrat, general manager of Portola Plaza Hotel, a LEED-certified hotel; Kris Beal, Director of the Central Coast Vineyard Team who has spearheaded the SIP (Sustainability in Practice) certification for local vintners; and Dr. Steve Webster, co-founder and retired director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium - about how ocean sustainability must be a collaborative effort across all their industries...and what they are doing to make a difference.

Then we strolled to the Museum of Monterey for a reception featuring some of Local Catch's recent catches and great SIP-certified Monterey County wines.

As always, I ask that the boys share with me something that they learned. Here's what they said...

Riley: I learned how phosphorus and nitrogen go down the Mississippi River and flow all the way to the Gulf of Mexico and create dead zones. Farmers in Iowa are helping by using less fertilizer and they are making wetlands that clean up the phosphorus and nitrogen before the water hits the river.

Dylan: I learned that scientists use suction cups to tag the Northern Right whales near Boston. From the tags, they can learn about its motion, where it feeds, and, then, they can work with the ship captains to not sail where the whales are. And when the tag comes off, it has a tracking device so the scientists can pick it up.

Check out Ocean Frontiers: on facebook, on twitter, or view the trailer and website here. It's worth your time.