On the Rocks

Two years ago, we went to Maine. The guys loved it so much, they wanted to come back. So we did. Ethan decided to spend the week at a friend's house about 2 hours away from where Esther, Ryan, Daxton,and Ba are staying. Ryan decided that we should go play on the rocks near the Bass Harbour Light and walk in the woods nearby.

Ethan's 12th Birthday!

Ethan turned 12 today. His day started out with a heart-shaped pancake complete with whipped cream birthday candles.

 Next up, the cake of his dreams. Behold the Pie-Cake:

The bottom layer is a dark chocolate fudge cake with a strawberry-rhubarb pie baked inside of it. The top layer is a German chocolate cake with a peach pie baked into it.

 

I love Ethan's candle placement. (As a side note, I am also digging Ryan's new glasses.)

And when you cut it open the pie-goodness oozes out.

After the cake, we walked around Mystic, CT and Ethan got to pick which stores we went into. We didn't by anything, but he had a blast making a wish list. We had fish & Chips for dinner and he got salt water taffy and ice cream for dessert.

He got his present yesterday: a brand new iPod. He was so happy with his present and his birthday that he declared today the Best Birthday Ever and one of the Best Days Ever.

Welcome Daxton Idris!

Welcome Daxton Idris!

Wednesday
4 April 2012
7lbs. 0.3oz.
4:21pm

What have you guys been doing?!

We've been doing lots of fun stuff lately. I guess that's one reason I have so neglected this blog. Of course we've been in lots of water. In August we met Faith, Easy, Malila, and Zola at Riis Park in Brooklyn.

Sitting in chairs: Esther & Malila

Sitting on a Towel: Ryan & Easy

Ethan had a really great time talking with Malila.At the end of August, we went to the Northeast Unschooling Conference in Massachusetts. We hung out with friends.

Drue and Ethan

We got tattoos.

We laughed...a lot!

Drue (Standing) Declan (Pointing) Ethan (Sitting) Ryan (Standing on a chair)

We even played some of our favorite board games.

We had sleepovers and even slept at some of them!

Ryan (Left bed) Amory (Sleeping bag next the right bed)
Doran (Right bed) Ethan (Sleeping bag in the foreground)

We tried out new pools like the one at the newly opened Shoreline Y.

Mimi, Ethan, and Doran

We had a visit from Aunt Kathie.

We tried out chocolate fondue. Doran wasn't as fond of it as everyone else. He enjoyed eating the fruit without dipping it.

Ryan, Ethan, Amory, & Doran

We went to Madison Square Park in NYC and then went to see the King Tut exhibit.

Ryan asked to have his picture taken on top of the tire swing structure.

Ethan on the tire swing.

For my birthday, Ethan made me chocolate brownies! He and Ryan lit the candles. Afterward Ryan had a blast re-lighting a candle and blowing it out until it became nothing more than a stub.

We've been having amazing sunsets here lately. This is one we saw from the top of East Rock.

East Rock has been Ryan's favorite place lately. He loves building cities in the sand pit and being buried up to his neck.

So, that's a little of what has occupied out time lately. Now it's time for me to go play with Ryan.

Water Park, Computers, and Snow!

Wow it's been a long time since I wrote here. Guess I've been too busy enjoying life to write about it. We just got back from the UWWG.That was big fun.

Ryan loved the sword fight and the endless games of chase.
He enjoyed reconnecting with friends (Jared is on the right) and making new ones (Jet is on the left).
Ethan had a blast selling and trading Pokémon cards with Aryn and Evan.
Ethan really wants to learn to surf. We thought this would be a perfect place to try it out, but he absolutely hated the flow-rider. He said it was too fast and too scary.
After he tried it out, cried, and calmed down he said, "I'm really proud of myself for trying that." Way to go Ethan.

We left the Water park on Friday and arrived home Saturday to a visit from two wonderful friends. Doran and Amory are here for the week. They arrived just in time for Ethan to get his long awaited holiday present. He wanted a laptop and used all his Christmas/Hanukkah/Solstice money to get it. He waited until we could find one in his budget that met his needs. That finally happened yesterday. He was so excited. He and Doran opened the box together.
Mimi helped get it all set up.
Ethan hasn't been off it for long since.
Today we have lots of snow. Doran wanted to go play in it, but was having trouble convincing the other guys to go out. I suggested we could cover him in snow without leaving the house. Ethan leaned out the back window and shoveled the snow from the overhang. All Doran had to do was wait. It was Ethan's idea of perfect snow fun. He got to cover someone in snow without going outside.

Now we're setting up all the computers in the house so that all four guys can play Wizard101 together.

Children and the Politics of Dinner

The first time I encountered bigotry centered around what one of my children ate and where and how he ate it was when Ethan was an infant. Mimi and I were in the food court at the mall. While she got us some food, I pulled up my shirt and started feeding Ethan. A woman glared at me. I smiled. When Mimi arrived with the food, we began to eat. The woman stalked over to the table and said, "Can't you do that in the women's room?" Mimi stood up and told her, "He is not going to eat lunch in a bathroom stall. Are you?" The woman went back to her table, gathered her things and left.

That was first time we had a stranger tell us and our sons how and where to enjoy their meals. It wasn't the last time. On more than one occasion I've had strangers in restaurants complain to me about Ethan and Ryan's behavior. Sometimes they had legitimate concerns. Most times, however, they complain about things that really aren't issues in our world: "Your child is standing by the window." "Are those your sons looking at the fish?" and my personal favorite "Did you know your children are playing under your table?" (For the record, yes, I am aware of where the guys are and what they are doing, and yes, I am ready to intervene if they are underfoot.)

I just finished reading an entry in Raising My Boychick in which Arwyn addresses this issue. After reading her take on it, I want to have cards printed with the following excerpts from her blog and hand one to the next person who says, "Are you sure it's alright for your kids to eat standing up?"

I recently ran across a piece of child-hate (no, I’m not telling you where) that said, in part, “Sure, I think children are people, but their parents need to make sure they act like it in public! People in restaurants don’t crawl on the floor or dance between the tables!” Really? Because I’m pretty sure what you were talking about just then was a person who was, in fact, dancing between the empty tables.

This is but one example of the widespread phenomenon of child-hate disguised as simply a “concerned citizen”: children are OK in public, as long as they don’t in any way attract an adult’s attention. It usually comes with a hefty dose of mother-blame (which is a type of misogyny, remember), in the form of “she should control her kids, or keep them at home!”

When the parent-blaming child-shaming folk say “I treat kids like people by expecting them to act like it” what they’re really saying is “I expect kids to act like adults”, which boils down to the belief that only adults are people. Because if you actually recognize that children are in fact persons, then you would be able to see that yes, actually, people do do those things in public, and the proof is dancing right in front of you.

What does it mean, exactly, to honor their personhood? It means simply that we start with the radical idea that children are people: that they have the right to bodily integrity; that their needs are no less important than ours, that their desires are no less worthy than ours; that their feelings matter, that their ideas matter, that they matter; that they should be respected for who they are, not just valued (or devalued) for what they do for us.

So that child, dancing in the aisle while you are dining? Their personhood means they have just as much right to be there as you do. If they are unreasonably blocking the way, or damaging property, or causing such a commotion that no other patron is able to also be comfortable in that space — in other words, if they are actually doing something objectively objectionable — then of course you have a cause to complain. And perhaps that was the case in the original screed I read: I cannot know. But regardless, if in the course of your complaint, no matter how legitimate, you state that children need to act like adults (especially using the code word “people”) or not be allowed out in public? If your objection is, at its base, that they are a child in public, daring to act like a child? Then you are an anti-child bigot, and you are the problem in that restaurant that needs to be sent home until you can act like a person.

I have no illusion that the person who receives the card will read it or take it heart, but if only one person reads it and realizes that rather than expressing concern s/he is, in fact, trying to control Ethan and Ryan and me than it will be well worth the effort. All children deserve the right to go out in public without having to act exactly the way people around believe "a child" ought to behave.

Tractors, Tino, and the Trapeze

To celebrate my birthday, and because it's just big fun, we all went to the Guilford Fair today. Ethan an I snuggled while watching the tractor pulls.
Then he and Ryan had fun with Mimi.
Mama Jeanne really got into the tractors.
This kid won first in his division.
One of the cool things about the Guilford Fair is that the Flying Wallendas perform there. (Yes, The Flying Wallendas like in the movie.) Today Tino Wallenda walked across a wire strung 70 feet above the ground. The speck to the left of the sun is Tino.
He also did a head stand. That was very cool.
The Flying Cortes performed on the trapeze.
That act had Ryan mesmerized.

Ethan really liked the round-up ride.
At one point Ryan asked for a corn dog. Mama Jeanne tried to find one, but failed. Could there really be a fair with no corn dogs?
I didn't think so. Mimi had corn dog magic and found one for him.

Ryan made friends with a donkey.
Both guys liked the inflated slide.
It was a full good day. We stayed for hours looking at the exhibits and the livestock. We said hello to the llamas, the cows, the sheep, the chickens, the rabbits, and the goats. We even got to see a cow getting her hooves cleaned and her swollen foot bandaged.

Eventually though, Ethan got tired, sat down at a table near the sheep, and went to sleep,
so we gathered him up and headed home.