Four

A little girl I know turned four on Tuesday. This little girl is charming, funny, bright, inquisitive, joyful, enthusiastic, and has the best snuggles in the house. She is curious about frogs and plants and animals and babies, and really, really wants to learn how to write. She tags along with her brother and picks up some of his Lego skills (such as building spaceships with exploding metal pieces on them, with pink and purple parts included). She is delightful, a comfort to my heart from the beginning.

Four seems like such a milestone birthday this time around. She's not a baby or toddler any more; she even seems like she's moving through the preschool age and some days I think she could be in Kindergarten next year. Yet she still sucks her thumb and needs her Mommy more than any other figure. I am so thankful I get to be home with her every day and help her grow and learn and watch her blossom and discover the world.

On her birthday we went to the preschool room at school while Gabriel had his martial arts class, then we went to Gymnastics for her. We had lunch, then went down to the waterfront and visited a unique little shop called Just Frogs (and Toads Too).

Part rescue center, part gift shop, part educational facility, Just Frogs is run by one passionate and dedicated lady. We got to see and learn about several different kinds of frogs and turtles she had there, and bought some little gifts for our friends. Then we went and bought cake and dinner ingredients, came home and started cooking and decorating. Annika wanted a frog theme for her birthday, but she wanted a strawberry cake, which she helped me make.

We decorated for the close friends who were to join us for dinner, and the kids had a blast playing with all the little plastic frogs we had gotten. A nice dinner (salmon, her choice), a few presents, a yummy cake with to-die-for coconut milk ice cream, and our little four-year-old was satisfied.

Now she's four, and it's hard for it to sink in. I guess I'll get used to it soon enough!

Gabriel's Student Showcase

Gabriel has been taking an amazing art class at our local Homeschool Resource Center. It is feeding his need for learning more about art than I can give him at home. In addition, he usually comes home from the library with books about art and drawing that he reads and learns from at his own pace. I have seen his drawing skills take huge leaps forward in the past few months as he has had the time and inspiration to work on his techniques. Our HRC had a Student Showcase in March, where students could enter art of many different varieties, from traditional pieces to performance art. There were many drawings and paintings of course, but also duct tape fashions, Irish dancing demonstrations, and even a computer game that some friends of ours designed. I was so proud of my son for putting his work out there for the public to see. He chose two of his hand-built pottery items from his Free Form Art class, a needle-felted dragon he made at home, two pencil sketches he completed, and one or two watercolor paintings. It made this sentimental mother's heart swell to see my baby's work displayed for all to see. He was a little disappointed that his art didn't get chosen to go to the Edmonds Art Festival later this spring. I have to confess a part of me was disappointed, too. But we talked about how the important thing was that he loved making art, and he was improving so much lately, and how great it was that he would take the risk and enter his work in the first place. The little guy takes himself so seriously (I'm sure he got that from me - poor kid!). Anyway, I hope you'll indulge me as I show off my son's work from the night of the show.

The needle-felted dragon he made - so sweet! It got a lot of comments.

Gabriel's two clay pieces are in the center - a green and blue pitcher and an orange "Sculpture."

The artist himself in front of two of his pencil sketches - top and bottom left.

Writing Prompt: Children and Technology

I was inspired by a recent writing prompt over at Literary Mama, and though I didn't submit my piece, it was interesting for me to reflect on the impact technology has had on my young children and on our parenting. I am married to a computer geek, so we are wired more than many families, yet my mother is also a librarian and I am an environmental educator. I find our children moving between the paper and the digital ages.

I am interested in what others have found - how does technology impact your parenting? How do you find a balance between today's digital world and the world we grew up in? Post a comment here, or write something longer on your own blog and let me know. The following is my essay, "Paper and Digital".

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I sit in the living room with my laptop, putting my feet up for a moment. My son is playing in the playroom at the other end of the house. Suddenly, a chat window pops up on my computer. “What are we having for dinner tonight?” he asks me. Gabriel is 7, and we are already having mundane daily conversations via chat. He also knows how to do a video chat with Grandma and Papa. He edits videos he makes with the computer’s camera, creating special effects and adding music and credits. He has figured this out himself, and now he is teaching his three-year-old sister how to use a mouse and play the paint program.

My children are becoming dexterous with technology. They see Mom and Dad and everyone else using computers and cell phones and DVRs and digital cameras, and think that there is nothing difficult about it. They are growing up intertwined with the digital world, like vines wrapping around a multi-trunked tree, tangled and inseparable. They don’t know anything different.

My husband and I try to be very aware of how much technology infiltrates their lives. We do want the kids to be completely comfortable in the digital world. But I also try to balance that influence with a healthy dose of nature and art. I limit the amount of screen time they get, and since they were babies we have spent as much time as possible getting out into nature. I want the pull of the natural world to be at least as strong as the pull of the technological. I also try to make lots of opportunities for art and doing things with their hands. Art has become an important outlet for stress for them, and a source of great joy already.

We have read books to them since their first days of life, before they could even see the pages or hold their heads up. We routinely max out the library cards. Gabriel learns very well on his own, teaching himself about nature and physics and house plants and drawing – anything he is interested in, really. Every flat surface in our home has at least one book on it, and the bookcases are piled two rows deep in places, the wooden shelves bulging downward under the weight. The kids stay up after we put them to bed, headlamps on. Books get lost under the covers (along with scissors, crayons, pencils, sharpeners, sketchbooks, and other miscellaneous items – but that’s another problem altogether.)

I see my children moving in a world filled both with paper and digital ideas. I watch them navigate, moving seamlessly between media. I feel grateful that I haven’t lost them to the digital void yet, and keep trying to guide them in finding the elusive point of balance in their lives. What amazing opportunities await them! I wonder how much the world will change as they grow into adults, how different things will be when we set them free to make their own ways in life. I hope they’ll continue to chat me when they are in college, and send me drawings and go hiking with me, too. Then I’ll feel I’ll have done my job well.

North Creek Park Exploration

Annika on the boardwalk at North Creek Park

We've had a run of sunny weather, which is normal for this time of year, and I always need the sunshine to combat the cabin fever that sets in this month. I looked through one of my hiking books yesterday to see if there was anywhere new I could go with the kids. We've been wanting to see birds, and I had a wetland in mind, so I found a park just 20 minutes from my home that I hadn't explored yet. We arrived at North Creek Park in the mid-afternoon, so the birds were quiet except for a few red-winged blackbirds and marsh wrens. We read a bit about the history of the park on an interpretive sign at the overlook at the beginning of the trail. Then we headed down the gentle hill. A duck squawked at us from a cattail-hidden pond. Otherwise the only sounds were the wind in the dry canary reed grasses.

Shaggy cattails from last summer look a little worse for wear.

The trail through the wetland at North Creek Park is entirely on boardwalk. The walk floats on the water for parts of it, and during the wet season the water seeps through the cracks between the boards. Expect to get your sneakers wet if you go, or wear waterproof footwear. The trail is only about a half-mile long to the end, so even young children can make this trek. My kids' favorite part was finding clumps of frog eggs in the water.

Frog eggs attached to a stem under water.

They delighted in touching their fingers gently to the blobs of jelly, and keeping their eyes open to try to find more hiding under the vibrant green duckweed.

Annika got brave and touched the egg clumps.

We didn't walk the entire length of the trail, since we came upon more water than we were prepared for.

Water covers parts of the boardwalk, making it all more interesting.

We made our way back to the start, and the kids spent the rest of the afternoon playing on the fun and innovative playground equipment. There are also picnic tables and a porta-potty onsite. I recommend this park for an interesting walk. I know we'll definitely be back!

My two happy munchkins.

Fragrance and Greenery

{I wrote this post two weeks ago, in the evening after we went to the Flower and Garden Show}

Each year in Seattle, organizers put on a most incredible feast for the senses - The Northwest Flower and Garden Show. Several times I have enjoyed this event with my mom, and once with my mother-in-law. It would be a girls' day out, leaving the kids at home with Daddy. But this year the moms couldn't come, and I thought Gabriel was old enough to enjoy it now. I couldn't very well leave Annika at home, so I surprised them this morning with the news that we would be going there for our field trip day today. We took the bus downtown (the SLOW bus, with the "colorful" Bus People), got our tickets, and rode up the four stories of escalators to enter the main event area. Immediately, the fragrance of multitudes of blooms filled the air, heavy and almost dripping.

We viewed the fabulous display gardens, visited the children's area, spent some time in the butterfly house, and enjoyed "window shopping" at all the booths. We came home with 2 lavender plants and some air plants for the kids. I was surprised that Gabriel was more interested in buying house plants than garden plants. There weren't really any house plant booths, which was just as well.

I'll leave you with a number of photos from the day.

Gabriel was taken with this garden full of orchids.

This was a rooftop garden, a living roof complete with solar panels for the display house.

I thought these colorful rocks were a nice addition to one of the display gardens.

A fun little spiral adding color to the garden.

This dinosaur themed garden had castings of dinosaur footprints among the prehistoric plants. Such a fun idea!

The kids got to plant some pea seeds at one of the kids' booths.

We spent about a half an hour in the butterfly exhibit. Gabriel had five or six on his hand by the end. The kids were so sweet and gentle with the butterflies.

We got to observe the butterflies feeding up close.

When we walked through this display, Gabriel commented that he felt like he was in a dream. I thought that was a pretty good compliment to the designers.

Spring Already?

January begins the year dark and damp in our neck of the woods. The lights of Christmas come down, the decorations get put away, and I breathe a sigh of relief that we made it through another holiday season. January is a time of resting, catching our breath, and dreaming of the year to come.

This year has been unusually mild, though, and it seems that spring is just around the corner.

The helebores in the front yard have a large clump of blooms.

Violets are appearing out back, underneath the clematis bush that is sprouting out already. I find myself at once cheered by the hope of spring and brighter days, and yet also resisting the change. Is winter really almost over? I was just getting used to it. The earth just keeps spinning, moving faster and faster in its orbit. At least, that's how it seems to me. Maybe I'm just getting old.

A few weeks ago we had a warm day for January, and took a drive up along the Skagit. In many years the bald eagles come down in the winter months to feast on the salmon that are spawning in local waterways, and to get a break from icier climes up north. This year the migration peaked in December, but we still were able to see a few eagles during the day, and the kids learned about the connection between eagles and salmon.

Just as important, we were able to get some fresh air and have a break from the confines of the house. Sometimes you just need a change of scenery to revitalize the mind.

Carkeek Park Outing

During the fall months, many salmon return to local streams to spawn. In the old days, before European settlers citified this area, salmon used to be so thick in the streams, a person could walk across on their backs. Now, well, streams in the city are lucky if any salmon find their way up them at all. At Carkeek Park, in Seattle, school children participate in raising salmon eggs every year, and releasing them into Piper's Creek. Four to five years later, the salmon come back from their ocean journeys and miraculously smell their way back to the same creek they came from. They mate, lay eggs, and die, their carcasses littering the streams and providing precious nutrients to the ecosystem.

I wanted to get out of the house, and even though I still need to use a big walking boot to walk outside, I can drive with a regular shoe. The paths at Carkeek are level along the stream, and there is a little interpretive center to visit. We looked at some taxidermy specimens, and some bones they had on display, and compared the differences between some of the birds.

Annika and Gabriel check out a barred owl specimen.

A former colleague of mine, Brian, came downstairs to say hi to us, and showed us the tubes with salmon eggs at different stages of gestation. He even let us eat our lunch inside.

Brian shows the kids the different stages of salmon egg development.

The temps were in the upper 30s or low 40s, and it was dry when we began our little field trip, but it started raining when we got ready to go down to look at the stream. I had planned to walk along the length of Piper's Creek, looking for spawning salmon, and then take the kids up to the playground to play. But the rain started falling harder and harder, a drenching, cold rain that soaks through. The kids were not very interested in seeing fish, but we did spot two carcasses in the short section we observed. Apparently the cohort that was released four years ago was infected with a gill rot disease they had brought with them from the hatchery, and most didn't survive, so there was a very low return this year. Learning this information, I felt lucky that we had seen any at all.

The kids look over Piper's Creek.

Gabriel was interested in the solar panels at the learning center. On sunny days, they provide the power for the offices.

Despite the rain and the lack of spawning fish, I still think this was a successful outing. I know my kids are missing the forests, and they commented on how peaceful it was there. I hope we will be able to get out more soon, and that I can find some more wooded trails that I can go on until my ankle heals a bit more. (Sorry my pics are a little dark, it was a gloomy day today.)