Morels in Ravenna?

The kids and I were walking to the playground this evening and stopped to check for mushrooms under a nearby evergreen. It seems to be the place they grow in fall and I was hoping to find a specimen for my mushroom ID class tomorrow night.

After charging in vain through the cottonwoods last month, we were all shocked, delighted, stunned - to find a crop of morels growing there. We picked them all - Frost and Wren fighting over "the big one" Frost found - and plan to eat them for breakfast!

Our first morels! I can now add these to the chanterelles, matsutake and shaggy lepiotas I can find and eat all by myself.

One of the smaller fresher specimens

Frost, feeling the joy.

Wren, excited because we are

and wanting whatever is most desired.

Frost Makes Tea

Since we started sleeping with our bedroom doors shut, we have been getting at least an hour more sleep every morning. I discovered that Kitty Haiku had been waking the kids with stepping and mewing.

Now, Frost is the first to get up and I hear him clattering around in the kitchen making strange breakfasts which are more to his liking than those I provide. Recently, he has been eating humous and Mary's Gone Crackers for breakfast followed up by ovaltine in milk. Other days, he has toast and honey WITH NO BUTTER, rice crackers and peanut butter or a peanut-butter banana.

This morning I came in to find him dipping biscotti in a cup of Chamomile tea with milk.

"I made my own tea." he said.

"Great" I said. "I guess you wanted a biscotti?" [We made them last night at his request]

"I had a hard time figuring out how to make tea," he added, not yet done "until I discovered that there are instructions on the tea box."

"You needed instructions?" To me, brewing tea is a self evident process much like adding milk to cereal.

"Yes, first I thought I should pour boiling water in a cup and then dip the teabag in up and down and up and down. Then I thought I should put the teabag in the teakettle and turn it on to boil it. Then when I'd pour it out it would be tea."

"No, don't do that!"

"But then I found the instructions. It says: 'BRING WATER TO A BOIL. POUR OVER TEA BAG, STEEPING 4-5 MINUTES FOR THE FLAVOR TO UNFOLD COMPLETELY'. So I did that."

He finished his mug of tea with a flourish. Well satisfied.

"You did very well. Now that you like to make tea you can choose any one of my teas in the cupboard. There is Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Green Tea, Mint. You make them all the same way. Or you can use my little teapot to brew in."

"CAFFEINE!"

"Yes, they have a bit of caffeine but that's okay"

Frost is enamored of the idea of drinking coffee, because, much like alcohol, it is a forbidden and unknown substance. I buy him the occasional green-tea latte from Starbucks and he feels The Man.

You tell them its for fun

DISCLAIMER: This is a rant.

You tell them its for fun. They're on a team. Its not about who wins or loses.

But there you are on a Sunday afternoon, in a freezing wind, cowering on the sidelines and biting your tongue to stop yourself yelling instructions to your poor 8-year old who is playing soccer against boys, who, unless they are from some other branch of the hominid line, are clearly some years past 8 candles on the cake.

What am I saying? These kids don't have candles! They have daggers stabbed into a block of ice carved in the likeness of my son. They sleep with aphorisms like "shoot for goal from the half-way line" and "There is NOTHING in front of you but your fears" which is why they run right through, into and over my son who is looking a bit aimless in his new red soccer shoes and sounders pants.

So, we get one goal. Its in the first 10 seconds as the other team is still muddled. This is the only goal we get. The oversize team gets 8 goals. We make some good plays but

"the bad team" [as Wren calls them] just kicks through.

Three of our players sub-out crying.

Frost says "I feel bad. I feel disappointed. We got one goal and then we didn't get any more. And they were kind of big."

"Big fuckers." I want to add. " They were big fuckers." But most of all I judge their parents. Do they enjoy sending in their soccer ninja's to crush the ego's of small boys? Is it about competition? Money? God? Is it a small-penis thing?

I really want to know what club you have to join to get your kid on a soccer team that wins. Not all the time. Honestly, I am Not That Parent. However, in 3 years of playing soccer Frost's teams (no, not the same team) has seldom (if ever) won a game.

I think we may have drawn occasionally.

Josh can correct me as when things are going swimmingly and we are All Having Fun, I don't keep score. It doesn't matter.

"If I play soccer more seriously will there be a trophy?" Frost asks.

"Yes, I think they have trophies in some leagues." I say. But I am dismayed.

I ran the line I heard his coach tell the team at the beginning "This is for you to have fun playing and get some practice. Get out there and have fun."

Frost is not buying it. "I had fun kinda. It was fun playing soccer. But it was not fun getting creamed."

I guess this is where I should rise above my irritation and say something big and wise like "eventually you'll be bigger than someone else" or "they probably practice every day and aren't allowed video games."

But I don't. I can't stomach the optimism.

Instead, to offset the tone of this rant I shall leave you with some stolen phrases you may chose to use if your child is mis-matched in a sporting endeavor and seems to care about it:

1. "You don't have to be perfect. Effort and improvement are important."

2. "You are a valuable part of the team"

3. "It is okay to make a mistake, we all do. What do you think you learned from it?"

4. "How can we turn this into a positive?"

5. "I'm proud of you for trying"

6. "I'll bet by next year you will be able to handle [them], you just need to grow a little"

7. "I know you are disappointed that you didn't win, but you'll do better next time."

Hairquarium

I took Wren to the aquarium today. Its been a while since we were there and he was keen to see the octopus. I hobbled along with him (because I had a scooter accident and have a big swollen left knee) and sat a long time gazing at the big fish in the bubble.

Sturgeon (below) was the biggest fish

Octopus was stuck to the glass

etc

Etc

First {real} Haircut

This morning Josh said "I think Wren needs a haircut." I had thought the same thing so I took Wren to the hair-cutter today. I have tried this before and it was not successful [crying, thrashing, leaving half-cut]. This hairdresser was much better. She gave him a box of toys and started cutting straight away while he looked through the toys. This lasted long enough for her to cut Wren's whole head in layers.

Before

After

The Back

The Hairyness & Toys

Carkeek

Frost has joined a soccer team, practicing on Monday afternoons. The first two weeks have been icy, rainy, dark. Because the field is some distance from our house, Wren and I stay at the park and play while he practices for an hour.

Last week, we saw a Grey Whale blowing in the bay at Carkeek while we watched from the bridge. It was incredibly cold. The wind off Puget Sound was so strong it went straight through my fleece and I had to hug Wren in my coat to make him wait.

This week, it was cold but without the wind, and the tide was out. We went down to the beach where Wren collected sea glass. No whales to see but Wren insisted on sitting down at the top of the stairs where we had seen the whales, and to watch the flat smooth sound in hopes of seeing one.

"They are there," he said.

Fruit Labels

Does anyone else see the problem with my fruit-bowl? Have those little stickers on your marmoleum floor? Have to fish them out of your kids mouth all the time?

I am really sick of branded food and the issue is more acute when its a kiwi, an individual banana, one lemon. I also object to having to buy grapes in those mesh bags. I presume this is because the bag is branded while individual grapes would be tricky to label. Not that I want to buy individual grapes, I just don't want to be the customer unpackaging grapes and cutting the 5lb bunch in bits so I can afford a bag.

I know this is not particularly newsy but I am tempted to paint a fruit bowl, a la the old masters, with these stickers on them.

Can I eat another part of him because I have ate his head?

Saturday

We took the kids down to the community center for the annual candy rush despite the cold. Having the two spare scooters we could all scoot along together and arrived ten minutes early. We waited in the gymnasium where there were volunteers holding age group signs. Wren was in the age group 1-3 while Frost was 7-9. There was greatest competition in the Age 4-6 category but the pressure was fairly high among the infants too.

Presiding over the event was an adult-costumed Easter Bunny.

"I do not like the Easter Bunny." Wren announced. "I do not want to see him."

Other young children were hugging its legs and begging for candies as they posed with the bunny for cell-phone pictures. I managed to snag a photo between inundations and Wren liked to look at the picture. He looked at it many times until he dropped the camera and I put it away. Then he reminded me "I do not like the Easter Bunny."

We followed the unpopular bunny to the field and tennis courts which were covered with "treats". Wren walked around looking at the ground but not picking up anything. I knew why. Apparently 1-3 year olds do not get candy. It was all 'healthy' stuff like granola bars, lara bars (made of raw foods), vitamin C gummies and pretzel bags. This was not the promised land.

Does this look like an easter egg hunt to you Mum?

I persuaded Wren to grab a few choice Lara bars for us and then led him over to the 7-9 year old egg hunt which was about to begin. "On your marks, get set, GO!"

Wren rushed right over to some Reeces chocolate candy. I urged him towards a solid chocolate egg. This was more like it.

Frost rushed around collecting plastic eggs which had undisclosed treats inside. Most of these were not candy. Frost said he didn't care, he really liked the surprise. We ended up with strings of shiny bead necklaces, plastic rings and tiny animal themed erasers.

Frost races for mysterious plastic eggs

Of course, our home efforts at chocolate consumption made up for any deficit in sugar.

Later, I baked hot cross buns from scratch. From scratch, I tell you. I was inspired by the Trotsky and Ash blog (written by friends of Kellie in Brisbane). I used their recipe and it was a success!

Here is Frost eating one for bedtime snack (with a Simpsons... still arguing about reading real literature vs comics. Honestly, gifted or not... this child doth not seek our Literature.)

This is what they looked like at the end, toasted, buttered, aromatic.

I was going for the "arty food blogger" shot but my point and shoot can't handle depth of field..

But I settled for the "lump of bun on a plate" shot instead.

Update: Sunday

At bedtime last night Frost asked me about my favorite part of easter when I was a kid. I said that my favorite part was The Family Egg which Dad brought home every easter from a chocolate shop. It was a huge chocolate shell filled with chocolate truffles, pralines and other individual chocolate delights. We broke it up and ate it piece by piece for days. Frost liked the sound of that and I am going to order a large chocolate mould so we can make our own Family Egg next year.

He also thought that they would have it at Haighs, the famous Australian chocolatier and wondered if we could ask GRANNY [Aside: Mum, please could you bring the kids a splendid chocolate from Haighs when you come and visit next? Could the shopping list also include Vegemite and another pair of blundstones for Frost. May need to be ordered over winter. ALSO, a pair of Ugg boots (faux is fine) for Frost. Will Pay!)]

After breakfast the boys opened their easter bunny chocolate.

Wren: "Can I eat another part of him because I have ate his head off?"

Me: "Yes, if you have eaten your breakfast".

Wren: "YES! Is is EATING CHOCOLATE DAY? I have ate his head now I am going to eat his base. Do you know why I am eating another part?"

Frost: "Why"

Wren: "Because its Tasting Chocolate Day"

Frost: What do you do on Tasting Chocolate Day?

Me [from other room]: Its called Easter.

Wren: EAT CHOCOLATE!

Are those Zebra Eggs?

Wren, Frost and I went to the zoo this morning. It was the Speed Dating equivalent of a normal visit. How to see the most animal in 30 minutes. Our goal was Giraffe so we raced around the africa savannah seeing hippo, oryx, zebra, ostrich and finally... GIRAFFE.

Wren noticed a clutch of [ostrich] eggs in the savannah and was excited. "Are those Zebra Eggs?" he asked?

"Do zebra's lay eggs?" I asked.

"No?" he answered, carefully.

"Who lays eggs..."

"BIRDS!" he said... "I don't knowwa? Do they?"

As we passed the hippos I realized that some adults are not much better than Wren in imagining Zebra eggs. A woman walking with her daughter (age 5ish) said "Look at the rhino statue, Macy."

The Rhino is pictured in this mud wallow below.

"Is it a rhino?" asked 'Macy'.

"Sure is. Look, it has armor on it."

"But it looks like a hippo."

"No, its a rhino."

"But it doesn't have a horn?"

"Some of them don't."

The boys riding the Rhippo

After sorting that out we moved on and Frost saw a bag of jelly beans spilled on the ground.

"Can we eat them?" he asked.

"Can we eat them?" Wren echoed, hopefully?

"Sure," I said. "You can eat one. They probably have zoo-poo compost on them but if you only eat 1 you'll be okay."

"Yuck! Zoo poo?" grimaced Frost, unsure whether I was serious.

"It will be fine, with one." I confirmed.

Wren dusted one off and ate it so Frost did too.

"Would another be OK too?" asked Frost, looking at the fallen bounty.

"I think you should just have one."

I had one too. I think that jelly beans, having hard shells, are less likely to absorb bacteria and stuff from the ground so I wasn't too concerned despite the stares.

Jelly Belly bonanza!

"Shannon, Come, come and SEE what we found!"

A bit later we played with Dylan and Laurie and ate food that had not be on the floor near animals. Dylan impressed Frost by his April 1st PRANKS (disconnecting the toilet chain in the cistern so it would not flush, taping the toilet seat down). On the way home Frost asked me how you stopped a toilet flushing, exactly. Not being very mechanically minded this was a challenge for Frost.

I told him he was not to mess with our new toilet in our new bathroom or he would have a new sense of my role as Mother [of the bathroom]. Of course, my hostility was masking a secret fear that he will open our new low-flow, dual flush toilet and take it apart, somehow. Nobody, not even our plumber, knows how the Europeans make their toilets and I am hoping to wait at least a decade to find out.

Later, when I was on the phone to Yet Another Roofing Company, he called me to his bedroom urgently. I know its urgent when he calls "Mommy, mommy" instead of a rather droll, "Shannon".

I opened the door to his room and a raw egg fell from the sky and broke on the carpet.

The Wicked Snow Queen cast him in her icy glare and swept from the room, her ermine furs hissing on the dirty carpet.

He was very quiet for a long time and then came out cautiously and asked "are you cross with me?"

"That was a REAL EGG from our OWN CHICKENS." I said. "You should apologize to them."

OK, that was not really a quotable moment from my parenting bible but its all I could think of. He should drop eggs on Joshua. He is the one in the family with a sense of humor.

Good news from the awfuldentist today - only a few more months of braces!!!! He said "a couple" so I told Frost "by summer, no braces" to manage his expectations.

What goes up

This morning we scooted to visit Leo, Anna and Ari. The sky was a cornflower blue [#6495ED] above us but to the north and south huge mounds of grey black clouds massed and churned. I was riding the scooter we snagged at the Lakeside Rummage sale last weekend. Unlike the old one, I am able to stand upright while scooting (the old one was found in a dumpster near our campsite at Cape Disappointment last summer and is held together with duct tape) and as a result I have fewer collisions and dead stops when I encounter surprising ridges and cracks in the sidewalk.

This is refreshing.

In my newfound confidence I have learned to do TRICKS. Wren also does tricks. He sticks his leg out in an arabesque while shouting "LOOOOOK LOOOOK". I do a trick where I hook one leg over the handlebars and shout "Look Wren, look!" Then he throws himself on the ground and rolls around a bit. This thrashing is because he can't do that move and is dismayed by my skill, grace and elegance ;) I urge him to get up and concede to copy his move and he deigns to copy his old move back again, with a twist of one arm out!

Apparently we look quite cute scooting around. Or perhaps it is amusing to people to see a 56 Wii-year old mother scooting with her 3 year old son [Aside: My Wii age yesterday was 56 while Josh's is now 22. If he regresses much further our relationship will be on an awkward footing]

Wren was a bit reserved at Leo's while he ate a rice-cake and peanut butter AND HONEY and a string cheese and frozen blueberries. However, his reserve was quickly eroded by his first trampoline bounce.

Here are some pictures of Leo and Wren on the trampoline.

1. Wren tells Leo what to do. Leo is not sure. Wren is pretending to be a little lion. The little lion thinks that it is too bouncy in the middle and wants Leo to stay at middle so he can be safe at the periphery.

2. But they both fall down anyway.
3. Falling down is funny. So is having hair that stands on end.
4. And jumping up and down is pretty fun too.
5. And falling down is ... well, you probably follow this part of things.

6. Except then you get really crazy hair and it hurts to touch you because you are electrifyingly bouncy. This reminds me of my brother, David's, hair when he was this age. It was always out like a dandelion.

Chilly Green

Determined to buck the Last Child in the Woods trend, I dragged Wren out for a birdwatch at Mercer Slough on Friday. It was a bitter day after a week of sun and we were not well prepared for the wind that swept across the grassland from Lake Washington. Despite the weather, the daffodils were bunching, the apple trees were in blossom and the ducks were mating. Horsetail ferns were pushing up their strange asparagus-like tips and we enjoyed watching flocks of white-capped sparrows, robins and chickadees moving through the old orchards at CUH.

Here are some pictures from that morning.

It was cold and I only had my bunny hat in the car so I wore that. As often happens with something on your head, I quickly forgot about it and only later realized why the posses of dog walkers were giving me smiles and nods. I had assumed it was the indefatigable cuteness of Wren.

Over by the pond Wren saw some Northern Shovelers 'fighting'. They were actually mating but it did not look friendly. The drake had pounced on the female duck and thrust his tail over her to the point that she was submerged beneath him and desperately sticking her head out from underwater while he did his "fighting" on her. This picture is of the drake mating. The duck is completely submerged beneath as he holds her down with his beak!

Wren found the horsetail ferns fascinating and broke some off to "see what is inside".

Outside CUH Wren found a fountain and asked for coins to drop in wishes. He had four pennies and one nickel and wished for:

An excavator

A digger

A ferry boat

A red dragon and

Candy

Since I had wished for a coffee we retreated to Zoka where I enjoyed one. Josh has challenged me to try his new diet (involving a single month long behavior change. His was only drinking water instead of other sweeter beverage options) and so I am now forsworn from pastries, even those which are remnants of Wren's indulgence.

We have just bought a Wii Fit board. Wii Fit analyzed the family and told us that Joshua is overweight, I am on the cusp of normal/overweight and Frost is at risk of being overweight.

Frost is rather alarmed and asked for a banana for bedtime snack instead of his usual nutella toast X2 option. He is thrilled and appalled by the accusation and reminded me of something Principal Skinner said "there is right and there is rude," calling Wii Fit rather rude. He says he will not let his friends do it in case they are offended. Good call. For the record, Frost is not overweight but he is large for his age - in the 75% percentile or so, which has probably been interpreted as rather risky weight wise. I explained that he is a fine size but of course he could eat better as he eats far too much sugary food and does not like to eat many vegetables. We shall see if this lasts.