Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

My cousin was babysitting the kids recently and when I got back, I asked, “What’d you guys do?”

“We read Gothic novels!” exclaimed Primo/

“Reeeeeally?” I asked my cousin.

“Yeah, we were talking about where the Frankenstein story came from –“

“Mary SHELLEY’S Frankenstein,” Primo interjected.

“And I told him about Gothic literature and he was interested so we read about it on Wikipedia,” she said.

Give the internet credit where credit is due.

"What did you learn about it?”

“Well,” said Primo. “Gothic novels are very tragic and usually someone kills someone else and there is a lot of revenge.”

Pretty spectacular babysitter I’ve got, huh?

So, a few days later, we were plodding through an Easy Reader – not Mittens, thank you very much, I think it was from the Dancing Dinos series, in any case not the most enthralling material – and I pointed out to Primo that the more he practiced, the more choices he’d have about what he could read.

“Before you know it, you’ll be reading Frog and Toad, and Magic Tree House, and stuff like that,” I said, “And by the end of first grade, I bet you can read Ramona Quimby.”

“And Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein?”

"What?”

“Will I be able to read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein by the end of first grade?”

“Oh,” I demurred, “I doubt it. I mean, that’s really hard. A lot of adults have a hard time reading it.”

He looked crestfallen. I reconsidered.

“Well, who knows?” I said, “You’re a smart little boy and I bet if you really put your mind to it, and practice super super hard, you might just be able to read some of it.”

“You mean I can read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein by the end of first grade?” he cried jubilantly.

I love how he specifies that its Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein he’s referring to, not a knock-off or lesser iteration but the real deal.

“Um, I bet you could. If you try really hard. Some of it. Why not?”

That night, where it is usually a striggle for him to read three pages in his Easy Reades, he read five entire books. He brought the books to bed with him. He was a man with a mission. Its waned a bit since, but his goal – however lofty—is pretty great incentive.

I, do though, really hope it’s the sort of thing he forgets about, by June. Or that he makes major strides with the reading. Because from What’s That Mittens? to Frankenstein, well, its quite a leap. But, as the song says, don’t stop dreaming about tomorrow.

The Wrong Dangers?

Just read a great piece about Protecting Our Kids From the Wrong Dangers, in the NY Times by Lisa Belkin. Here's a taste:

If history is any guide, we seem to veer between overreaction and underreaction — all while defining our own response as “moderate.” There is an inherent hypocrisy in our attempts to control our odds — putting the organic veggies (there is no actual data proving that organic foods increase longevity) in the trunk of our car (researchers tell us there is “evidence” but not “proof” that car emissions accelerate heart disease), then checking our e-mail on our cellphone at the next red light (2,600 traffic deaths a year are caused by drivers using cellphones, according to a Harvard study).

As a wired-to-be-neurotic mother with fully paranoid parents and one worrywart kid, I find this subject really fascinating. In reading the piece, I was reminded of a part of a book called Freeing Your Child From Anxiety by Tamar Chansky, which mentions an important thing to keep in mind when battling worry is this: just because something is really terrible to imagine doesn't mean it is likely to happen. Pretty obvious, I know, but when we start to imagine something awful, we get so sidetracked by what a terrible thing it would be, that we forget to consider that facts say its pretty improbable.

Everyone, especially modern parents, needs a gentle realignment in perspective sometimes. I know I need to be talked down from the ledge of overbearing, oversheltering, overparenting parenthood pretty frequently. I am, without a doubt, what people inclined to use labels would call a helicopter mom: its just in my genes, for better or worse. My parents called the cops no less than four times during my high school career, whenever I was more than an hour late coming home after school (making out with the b-friend, every time, so there). I come from a long line of mothers who don't even make an attempt to control the crazy and who think "smothering" is a positive parenting term. So hovering is a major improvement.

But let me just say that it annoys me to no end that we've grown accustomed to using terms like "helicopter mom" and "free-range kids." I get where Lenore Skenazy is coming from, and I think its beyond ridiculous that she got letters accusing her of child abuse for letting her kid take the subway solo (though if my grandmother could write in English, I'm pretty sure one of those would be from her), but the idea of intentionally starting a parenting "movement" with manifesto-type language aggravates me. We're all doing the best we can, in a world that's scary and in which we feel, and are, pretty powerless.

Plus, I often find myself at the playground having to contend with the kids of "free-range" moms who are letting the little ones develop independence, at my expense: I'm stopping them from throwing sand in other kids' faces, and watching them do tricks on the rings over and over again while my own kids get mad at me for not paying attention. So, my word to the wise is this: before you crown your kids free-range, make sure they're not going to wreak havoc.

But I digress. Give the article a read. Tell me what you think.

First Day of CCD

This weekend was Primo’s first CCD class. For those of you not in the Catholic know, that’s religious instruction. Catechism. Yeah, it’s old school.

I’ll tell you one person who wasn’t too happy about attending his first CCD class.

“ON SATURDAY??” Primo yelled at bedtime on Friday night when I finally worked up the courage to break the news to him, “THAT'S MY DAY OFF!”

“I know.”

“AND NOW I HAVE SCHOOL EVERY DAY???”

“Well, it’s not school. It’s just CCD.”

“BUT I NEED TIME JUST TO RELAX!”

I assured him that the one and a half hour CCD class would not impinge too heavily on his “relaxation” time since he had no plans for the whole rest of the weekend.

“CANCEL IT!! CANCEL IT!!”

Then came the question, of course, “Why do I have to go to CCD?? NO ONE ELSE GOES!!”

This was a tough one. I said there were a bunch of reasons but one good one was that it was important to me that he learn about God, because there are a lot of things that happen in life that leave you feeling sad and confused and lonely and when you believe in something greater than you, it can give you a feeling of peace and comfort in those times. He understood that and settled down a bit.

Then I bribed him with a trip to the store to buy part of his Halloween costume. That sealed the deal.

Funny part is, when we got to CCD, we saw a friend of his from preschool, who sat next to his mom with a terribly sour expression on his face.

“Is he in a bad mood?” Primo asked the boy’s mom.

“Oh,” she replied, obviously embarrassed, “Sort of.”

Then, when the kids went off to their classroom, she leaned over and told me that they’d waited til the night before to tell him about CCD and he, too, was pissed. That cracked me up.

When I came back to get him, he was all smiles. They were going to read about Bible stories, he said, and there was a prayer table with a candle, which he thought was rad. And his teacher turned out to be this super-sweet, down-to-earth mom of one of his friends from nursery school and she gave them scratch and sniff stickers.

“And,” he said, “We are going to have a BREAKFAST WITH SANTA CLAUS!!!”

The Catholics do know how to pull it out in the clutch.

Apple Picking: an expose

As we are prepare to do a little light apple-picking tomorrow, I came across this gem of a piece, from Slate, guaranteed to make you feel like total shit about your family-friendly weekend recreation.

What particularly got me was the revelation that the trees we pick from are dwarf trees, stunted little mutant freakazoid trees that regular apple trees would laugh at. Thanks Daniel Gross, for tearing the veil off my eyes and ruining my freaking apple-picking outing. At least the children haven't found out the AWFUL truth about apple picking. Think I'll keep it that way.

Happy trails!

As God as my witness, I'll never read Mittens again

Which is to say: a list of easy reader books which don't prompt you to knock yourself unconscious:

Elephant and Piggie

These are, by far, my very favorite, and Primo’s too, because they are freaking hilarious. Like, they stand on tiher own as picture books, too. And I read them to Seconda, who gets a total kick out of them, too. Besides being hilarious, the language is really simple which helps to keep morale up, and there is tons of repetition, -- not in a Seuss-y way, because it doesn’t rhyme, but in a Meisner way. I keep feeling like I’m back in acting class:

“I love the rain!”

“You love the rain?”

There are very few words on each page which keeps us truning pages at a nice clip, making Primo feel a sense of accomplishment,and giving him new illustrations to look at.

PLUS, one huge advantage I’ve found with these is that because it is all dialogue between the two characters, it works perfectly to perform as a play. So when Primo is feel particularly resistant to literacy, I can get him interested by telling him we’ll perform it as a play for Daddy and Sec, complete with props. It also makes the task more acheavable because he only has to reads half of the dialogue. Because the characters often yell at each other and have really broad facial expressions, it’s a fun play to put on. And then he’s read a book without even noticing, If only one of plays would include Piggie eating a plate of spinach, we’d be all set.

All Things Seuss

I feel like you love Seuss or he annoys the shit out of you. I love him, and Primo does too. Green Eggs and Ham is a favorite of his to read. One Fish Two Fish is good too and the Cat in the Hat, of course. Only trouble is, there’s a lot of text on each page, and the books are fairly long for beginner readers so he gets a little overwhelmed by how long it takes him to get through a page and loses momentum.

You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You

You can make any book a “you read to me, I’ll read to you book” by alternating lines. This fact is not lost on me. But I found one of these series at the Strand and since it was “spooky tales to read together” (Primo’s still nuts about spooks) and it cost under $4, I bought it. As it truns out, Mary Ann Hoberman, the stellar children’s poet, penned it, and the son of our favorite illustrator and drawing-book-auhor, Michael Emberley, did the pictures, so we were extra psyched. Primo loves the fact that the book was MEANT to be read by two people – so that it was required for us to share the load of the reading. Everything rhymes which really helps the beginner reader to figure words out, and the poems are all spooky and gross and creepy, just the way my brood like it.

Meg and Mog Books

These aren’t easy readers per se but a fantastic series of picture books from England about a crazy witch and her motley crew. The illustrations are so bold bright you feel like you’re having a hallucination, and that’s reason enough for me to crack it open. Simple text, fun stories.

As God as my witness, I’ll never read Mittens again.

Great American Dine Out

When I had my son five years ago, I instantly adopted my grandmother’s insane obsession with kids having enough to eat. Nonnie is the prototypical Italian grandmother who cannot rest until she has stuffed everyone, but most especially children, full of food. It’s not a hip or cool position to hold but that’s how I am now. If my kids refuse to have breakfast in the morning and I have to send them to school with just a few bites of apple or a handful of Cheerios, I spend all day agitated by the thought that their little stomachs are rumbling.

So the idea that there are children out there whose little stomachs really are rumbling, and not because they’re pesky and picky, but because there’s just no food for them to eat, is agonizing. Which is why I was thrilled to learn about a program that’s trying to help, called The Great American Dine Out, which is underway right now, and in which you can participate all week. Here’s the deal:

From Sept 19-25, participating restaurants nation-wide (and here in NY, that’s everything from The Palm and Blue Smoke to Boston Market and TGI Fridays) will donate a portion of the money you spend there to the No Kid Hungry campaign, run by Share Our Strength, whose goal is to eradicate childhood hunger by the year 2015. Basically, for this week, you donate by dining out. You can search for participating restaurants by entering your zip code here.

Here’s exactly what the program helps to achieve (from the Share Our Strength site):

• Enroll more eligible kids in school breakfast, after-school snacks and meals, and their families in SNAP (food stamps).
• Bring community gardens and farmers markets to low-income neighborhoods
• Bring affordable, fresh fruits and vegetables to urban corner stores.
• Teach at-risk families how to plan, shop for, and prepare healthy, low-cost meals at home.
• Help local food pantries, food banks and soup kitchens meet the pressing demand for more nutritious food.
• Increase awareness and understanding of childhood hunger and solutions to it.

Oh, and get this: the 150 year-old Australian wine company, Jacob’s Creek, has joined Share Our Strength and will donate $1 for every glass or bottle of wine ordered in a restaurant and for every glass of wine virtually shared (to do that, click on www.sharejacobscreek.com)

Yes, what I’m saying here is you can help hungry children by drinking (great vino, too, I might add – tried the Pinot Noir last night and yum yum, hit the spot)

Drink booze. Save yourself a night of cooking. Help kids. Who DOESN’T that appeal to?

I heart NY, even with tornadoes

We had one of those I heart NY weekends. Who would not be suffused with passion for our great city when their day consisted of the following activities:

Lunch of pierogies and borscht at Veselka. (When the waitress saw my five year-old eat an adult portion of pierogies, she said, “You must be Ukrainian!”)

Endless browsing and reading at the Strand. (OK, almost all of it was spent in the children’s section but hey, I now get my kicks finding half-price, wacked-out versions of Snow White from Sweden – so sue me).

A full tour of Halloween Adventure, where the kids tried on every bloody, mangled, ghoulish, creepy, horror-show mask they could find. My children are balls-out crazy about Halloween and their inaugural trip to the mecca of creepy costumes was good research for their year’s masterpieces.

Though that was already a full day, we decided to stop off on the Lower East Side and visit our new favorite playground (both newly-constructed and new to us) on Hester Street. This playground rocks our universe. It has a huge red rope spiderweb

climbing structure which kids can interact with in about 20 different

ways. There were kids climbing horizontally and vertically and hanging under it and slipping through it and laying on it. This red rope DELIVERED. The kids’ other favorite spot was this area on the floor made up of metal squares which played like bells when you jumped on them. The whimsy of this just about slays me. Seriously.

Ahhh, New York. Its got to be this good to make up for the fact that we now have tornadoes.